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Entered in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C., by R. C. Givms. 





DEC 6 1884 





LITTLE MOLLY 








PRINTED BY 

THE FRANKLIN PRINTING COMPANY, 

t 

5 AND 7 ARCADE COURT, CHICAGO. 



CHAPTER I. 


Hope is a rancke, a handsome mayd, 

Of cheerful looke and lovely to behold; 

In silken samite she was light arayd, 

And her fayre lockes were woven up in gold. 

She always smyled. 

Spencer. 


iMONGr the early settlers of our 
great city was one whose name 
has hitherto been comparatively 
unknown outside of the narrow 
range of his immediate acquaint- 
ance, Barnabee Smith — a name, by the way, 
which is so rarely heard and so peculiar in its 
sound as to suggest the idea of its bearers 
being of foreign extraction. Smith is inexora- 
bly, infallibly, distinctive. 

According to Genesis, Barnabee was a dual 
being, lie had in that thirteenth rib, — the 
which has long been a bone of dissention be- 




tween zealous ecclesiast and scientific sceptic, — 
a quiet, even-tempered wife who unquestion- 
ingly merged her own individuality in that of 
her Barnabee, realizing it as mete that she should 
be the smallest fractional part of the comple- 
ment. 

Barnabee’s earlier experiences had been tame 
indeed. His immediate ancestors had made no 
more noise in the world than might have been 
made b}^ two mushrooms that sprang into sud- 
den being in the morning, to wither in silence 
and pass away at night. When his parents for- 
sook this sphere the son found himself thrown 
upon his own resources. In after days he used to 
tell his children anecdotes concerning his expe- 
rience as a teacher in an eastern district school, 
where he had taught for many terms, and 
where he had become infatuated with his wife’s 
surpassing charms, she being at that time his 
scholar, and married her on the spot. 

There were great possibilities in Barnabee’s 
path, cropping out like bowlders rising from 
the meadow lawns, — fortunes waiting to be 
made, honors to be ,won, genii hovering around 
with magic wishing-lamps. When he pro- 


posed marriage to Mary Ann he believed that, 
through some subsidiary issue yet undiscovered, 
the union might abound in great possibilities. 
And thus it proved. 

First came Betty, now their eldest girl. Next, 
Nellie joined the Philharmonic club, which 
gave its most brilliant concerts during the 
fashionable hours of the night when vulgar 
folks snored soundly, or tried to, in their beds. 
And at length came Molly, the last and pret- 
tiest daughter of them all. 

The parents, being hard workers and frugal 
livers, had saved a little money, and they now 
concluded to join the western bound throng of 
emigrants. They located themselves on a farm 
skirting the banks of the beautiful Dupage 
river, near what is now the town of Naperville, 
Illinois, it being their intention to make this 
lovely spot their permanent home. 

But the labor promised to be too excessive for 
Barnabee’s comparatively undeveloped muscles. 
Swinging a refractory pupil by his paper-collar, 
and driving the playful oxen while guiding the 
contrary plow, were occupations which were 
widely different. The pioneer began to bewail 





6 






s 




the fact of his havins: no son, whose Herculean 
strength, it may be supposed, might have ac- 
complished an amount of labor beyond the 
comprehension of the ordinary human pigmy. 
One day, having been deploring his hard fortune 
as usual, he paused and sighed heavily. 


It was little Molly who toddled forward to 
comfort him, her flaxen head scarcely reaching | 

above his knee. j 

“Don’ cry, Pa,” she said in her wheedling 
baby’s voice, as sweet as the purling of the 
crystal brook in the clover meadow. “Molly ’ll 
help ’ou.” 

She was faithful to her word, for she lugged | 

the milking-tin out to the stables for him, per- 1 

sistently got in his way as he milked, and at | 

last fell into the pail, spilled its contents, and | 

was carried weeping into the house, overwhelm- | 

ed with humiliation at this disgraceful ending | 

to her high resolutions. j 


Time passed, and the children grew apace. 
Barnabee was far from rich, but he was able to 
obtain the comforts of life and a few luxuries 
as well. Help he could not afford to hire, and 
his three daughters, thrifty, hard-working girls. 






s 






chiefly assisted their father in every kind of 
manual labor. They were handsome, vigorous 
lasses, light-hearted and hopeful beyond the 
average, having become imbued with their 
parents’ idea of the certainty of eventual pros- 
perity; from what source this wealth must 
come, or at what time, they neither knew nor 
cared so long as the time was near at hand. 

The girls used to rise at an early hour, each 
milking her favorite cow while yet the last star 
twinkled in the dawn and the lark shook the 
dew off its yellow wings. They drove old John 
and Fan to the mill with corn and wheat, they 
helped to scatter the seed in the furrows, they 
rode in the elevated, swaying seat of the mower, 
guiding the sharp steel that cut the grain and 
dropped it in shining swathes, ready for the 
binders. It was a pretty sight to see them 
with their father bundling the golden oats or 
tossing pitch-forks full of fragrant hay over 
their muscular shoulders high into the hayrick. 
Last of all, little Molly, with tanned cheeks and 
wind-blown hair, must needs climb up in front, 
and, ensconced in a soft and comfortable nest of 
new-mown hay, jolt away to the old barn, into 


8 

whose capacious doors the whole load entered 
with perfect ease. The farmers’ lads had many 
an admiring smile and pleasant word for them; 
their lives were simple, sensible, and kind, and 
they were exceedingly happy in their domestic 
simplicity. 

But Barnabee was “peculiar,” as Mrs. Grundy 
would have said. He was visionary — visionary 
to an extraordinary degree. In his brain futile 
schemes for the acquisition of sudden and im- 
mense wealth were as plentiful as the tiger- 
lilies in his fields, and often they were quite as 
quick to pass away. Fortunately, for him, he 
possessed one inherent trait which preserved 
him from financial failure. It has been said by 
a prominent novelist that even the most chaotic 
of minds possesses some small, isolated nucleus 
of facts around which certain opinions are apt 
to cluster with a tenacity not to be overpowered, 
and an example is cited in the case of the old 
grandsire of uncertain mental equilibrium, who 
at all times, and under the most fiustrating cir- 
cumstances, never forgot to cling to his ebony 
snuff-box. 

The nucleus of Barnabee’s somewhat unstable 



9 

mind was his inherent appreciation of the soil. 
“Land/’ he would say, “is the primary element 
of wealth, and the possession of it is the honor 
the intellectual being covets as his natural 
meed.” Having, after years of toil, obtained a 
portion of this desirable commodity, he vowed 
that he would never relinquish his property 
unless he could transfer the same for another 
piece of land which^ in his own estimation, sur- 
passed in value his present farm. 

Whenever he paid a visit to the adjoining t 
city, which was fortunately an event of rare oc- 
currence, it was with diflSculty that his wife 
and daughters prevented him from participat- 
ing in the wildest and most impracticable of 
schemes. Here was a lime-fertilizer to be 
manufactured at an absurdly low figure : all 
the gardens in the United States wanted it; 
once introduced, the inordinate demand must 
clean out all the lime-pits of Illinois and 
fill his coffers with the brightest of silver coins. 
Here was a winnowing machine, calculated not 
only to cleanse all field-seed in an incredibly 
short space of time, but also to blow away the 
chaff from the Rev. Ephraim Long wind’s Sun- 


m 



10 

day morning talks, and reveal at once the three 
grains of substantial argument. A.nd here was 
a churn, calculated to turn the milk of the 
docile heifers, not into butter, but into the yel- 
lowest of golden nuggets. Even as he talked 
he could hear the money jingle — in his mind. 

His foible was well known, and as he had 
amassed a little money, he was harrassed by a 
crowd of vampires, who endeavored in many 
ways to take advantage of the old man’s weak- 
ness. 

Long ago there had been an ancestor. This 
event does not date so far back as does the pa- 
leontolic age; the time was, in fact, later than 
that mythological period of the missing link, 
wherein the naive polish of the ourang-outang 
and the epicurism of the Feejee Islander 
were scientifically blended. Tales of former 
grandeur, of blood as blue as indigo, and of an 
emblazoned coat of arms, had fired the imj gin- 
ations of the little Smiths for generations 
back; and many a time, as Barnabee sat husking 
corn in the shadowy old barn, surrounded by 
cackling hens, and with the demure eyes of the 
steady farm-horses looking over at him from 


IL 

their stalls, he would dream wonderful dreams 
of a rise in his finances, when he should no 
longer be compelled to hide his light under a 
yeoman’s bushel but should fiare it in the eyes 
of an applauding populace from the dizzy 
height of a wealthy mayor’s position. When 
he became a mayor, Mary Ann should dress in 
velvet, the black-eyed Betty should have a vest 
of cardinal satin, while Nelly should shine in 
pale blue and cream-colored tulle. As for 
Molly, — dear little Molly ! she should have 
dolls and caramels till she could not rest. Many 
a talk the happy family had of this desirable 
possibility as they sat around the blazing wood- 
fire of winter nights, when the Dupage river 
was frozen and glittered in the moon-light and 
the winds howled down the narrow gorge, rat- 
tling the shutters of the humble home. 

'‘Only wait till pa gets rich!” Betty would 
say, sighing, when she read of Mrs. Door- 
knob^'s last grand party and the detailed ac- 
counts of supper and costumes. 

But Molly, who was still too young to know 
that a silk dress was of far more value than her 
father’s comfort and her mother’s happiness. 


12 

would stroke their hands, grown large and 
wrinkled from long continued toil, and say: 
“When that time comes, dear mama and papa, 
you shall never work auy more.” 

Slow fate lingered on time’s path ; but at last 
dawned that auspicious day on which the 
straight lane of Barnabee^s quiet life was to 
come to a turn. 

The October afternoon was drawing to a 
close. The over-blown dahlias had spilled their 
petals upon the withering grass. Molly noticed 
that the hues of the larkspurs were faded, as 
she sat stringing them on the long stems of 
timothy and piping a ditty in her shrill child’s 
voice. Around her trooped the poultry it was 
her office to feed, multiply, and rear. She it 
was that marshalled around the hens of mater- 
nal proclivities and reasoned with them as to 
their pecking and gadding propensities; for a 
“setting” hen is pompous as an alderman, 
contrary as a brace of mules, argumentative as 
a plurality of debating societies, and consu- 
mately wicked. Her chickens once hatched, she 
proves herself a severe parent, her visiting pro- 
pensities becoming inordinately developed. If 



13 


I left uncooped, she drags her miserable oflf- ^ 

) spring with bicycle speed through the tangled | 

j gardens, soaks them in damp ditches, and ^ 

I scratches them up in the air, where they wheel j 

I vigorously and in quick succession like a jug- j 

gler’s knives. s 

Having from the first taught the little chick- 
ens to eat from her hand and to come at her | 

call, Molly entertained for her poultry a con- | 

siderable degree of affection, and as she sat 5 

singing she would now and then glance around | 

^ at the feathered troop with many a pleasant ! 

J chirp and call. Then she must have a crowing s 

i match, which set the roosters wild. Thus the | 

young manageress was developing an astute i 

I faculty for that executive ability which was | 

I demonstrated further on in her life. In the | 

I midst of the melee she started to see a stranger J 

i not ten yards away, sitting quietly on his steed, j 

I which he had reined in, and watching her | 

I with an amused smile on his face. | 

J He alighted and hitched his horse’s bridle to | 

i a tree. Molly arose and advanced to meet him. ^ 

j ‘‘Well, little lass,” he said, “is your father at 

home?” 




14 

Despite his smile Molly did not fancy this 
stranger. She eyed him suspiciously. 

‘"Yes,” she replied, “papa’s home. Go into 
the house, sir, while I run and call him.” 

‘‘Very well, my little girl. Be quick about 
it.” 

Quick, she was. Her small feet twinkled 
across the patch of garden to the barn beyond, 
where Barnabee was repairing the cattle- 
stanchions . 

“There’s a man wants to see you, papa. I 
don’t like his looks at all!” 

“Why, child, you must not be so quick to 
form opinions; it often takes a century to es- 
tablish a very small fact. A man, you say?” 

“I never saw him before.” 

Barnabee was dimly conscious of a grand and 
glorious predilection, the flash of gold, the ring 
of precious metal. He dropped his hammer 
where he stood, and going to the well near by, 
he bent down and washed his face and hands 
while Molly generously proffered the use of 
her old sun-bonnet for a towel, and afterwards 
dusted off his clothes with that trebly conveni- 
ent article. 




I 15 

I ‘'How are you, stranger?” said Barnabee, ad- 

I vancing with outstretched band. 

The visitor received that cordial welcome with 
a melancholy but grateful smile. How was he? 
j He was tired, exhausted, completely worn out. 

I Having come from Chicago, he had ridden 

I twenty-eight miles that day (an important 

I matter being under consideration), and now 

) he wanted to find a house where he could be 

accommodated for the night. He was very 
willing to pay a reasonable price for the extra 
trouble taken in his behalf. Had not Mr. Smith 
i a place for him in this hospitable mansion? 

I A hospitable mansion it was, indeed, one 

I whose kindly shelter and frugal cheer were 

willingly extended to the stranger. No locks 
barred its doors — had it been otherwise the 
keys must have rusted from disuse; the school- 
house, standing on the common half a mile 
away, was open day and night; the farmers all 
knew and mutually trusted each other, and the 
only person deemed dangerous was the one 
who expressed too keen an admiration of his 
neighbor’s horse-fiesh. Such was the actual 
case in those days. 




Ah, dear old homsteads in the country, with 
your generous halls bright with pleasant faces, 
in whose kitchens the coals glisten and the 
flames leap, while from the steaming kettles 
rise odors of plain and generous fare. Around 
your groaning boards the children laugh, thft 
matrons, plump and sunburned, pour the amber 
cider, the fowls that crowed their last but yes- 
ter night are unctuous to the hunger-sharp- 
ened tooth, and those deep urns hold mysteries 
the epicurean palate craves to taste. 




17 


CHAPTER 11. 


O, Dissembling courtesy ! O, how fine this tyrant 
. Can tickle where he wounds ! 

Shakespeare. 

Allow me, reader, to introduce Mr. Harrison 
Wild, a capite ad calcem, a dealer in lands. Be- 
hold him as he sits before that wide fire-place 
toasting his feet and driving a shrewd bargain. 
The fox is not more subtle and sleek, the lynx 
not more quick to spy its prey and pierce its too 
plethoric arteries. He is charged with an ener- 
getic nervous power of graphic description and 
persuasion just as the thunder-cloud is charged 
with electricity. Under his influence Barnabee 
Smith, although himself a man of superior 
mind, becomes a credulous and vacillating 
being. 

The flames roar up the wide chimney, emit- 
ting a rosy light that brings out the tint of 
Betty’s cheek,and the reddish brown of Nellie’s 




18 

hair, as they nestle together on the home-made 
settee and listen to the stranger’s conversation. 
Opposite them sits their mother, whose bright 
needles flash silverly in the colored wools, and 
little Molly has crept up and leans her dimpled 
elbow carelessly on her father s knee, while 
Gypsy crouches at his feet, fain to growl at the 
interloper, but hushed into unquiet tolerance. 

The future of Chicago as the central mart 
was assured beyond controversy, said Harrison 
Wild. Was ever such rapid growth known be- 
fore? And consider the number and influence 
of the capitalists that thronged its money mar- 
kets. Millions of wealth lay undeveloped with- 
in its environs; the owners thereof needed not 
to dig in order to obtain the precious metals, 
for time — whose capacious Possibility Banks 
are supposed to possess unlimited credit for all 
men — must eventually pour wealth into their 
laps. Barnabee Smith was blind not to per- 
ceive the marvellous future of the metropolis. 
Why was he living out here in this isolated spot 
away from all civilization? There was no 
chance of a town springing up here: even the 
toad-stool must have a seed from which to ger- 


19 

minate. Why did he not dispose of his farm 
and buy a section nearer the city? 

Why, indeed! Barnabee felt that he had been 
a mole for many years and blind to the reful- 
gence of that radiant luminary, the metropolis. 
He desired ardently to see, and Harrison Wild 
kindly opened his eyes; he required to be advis- 
ed, and Harrison Wild generously vouchsafed 
to suggest what might be done to pallinte the 
effects of his former mistake. 

He recommended that Barnabee exchange 
his generously cultivated farm for a section 
nearer the city. Indeed, he could advise him 
as to the very land, as he knew of a valuai>le 
tract of six hundred and forty acres just five 
miles southwest of the center of the city. 
True, the owner would be loath to part with it, 
but, for a generous consideration, he could be 
induced to do so; thus furnishing the purchaser 
with an unparalleled opportunity of jumping 
into an eventual fortune. 

As he talked, the fire sunk lower, dropping 
red coals in glowing heaps and puffing down 
showers of gray ashes. The flickering light 
gleamed fitfully among the rafters hung with 


20 

strings of yellow and red peppers and dried 
fruits, and lit up the eager face of Barnabee 
inclined and nervously thoughtful. Out of the 
coals factories rose, black smoke poared from 
industrial pipes, villiage houses started around 
in thick profusion, and the glitter of gold flam- 
ed in every sparkling ember. But Barnabee 
never noticed the wan ashes falling portentous 
and dead. 

Opposite him Mary Ann sat knitting indus- 
triously, every stitch recording a doubt, every 
doubt a compressed sign for the visionary dupe; 
but the girls — ah! the ambitious, enthusiastic 
girls, smiled down her fears, and even Gipsy at 
length became less aggressive, curled herself up 
against Molly, who sat on the hearth-rug, and 
fell into a fitful doze. 

“I can negotiate for you,” said Wild, “and 
procure this fine section in exchange for your 
farm and a small additional consideration. It 
lies only five miles from the court house. I 
tell you, my dear sir, that by holding on to it 
for a few years it will be worth millions — mil- 
lions!” 

Not that it tvould have been difficult for 



21 

Barnabee to “hold on to it the chances were 
that if he once got hold of it he would never 
find an opportunity to let go again. 

Barnabee could not sleep that night. Like 
one who, having picked wild strawberries in the 
marshes during the day, continues to gather 
them in his dreams till he is weary and ready to 
faint with fatigue, so Barnabee, when he did 
get a few minutes of sleep, found himself 
gathering gold from tree and bush, digging 
gold in mines, reaping gold in the w'heat fields, 
and garnering gold in great bins till his very 
hones ached on his couch. 

The design of Harrison Wild was to cheat 
the unsuspecting man out of his hard-earned 
farm, whose thrifty acres he coveted for his 
own. The section of land referred to belonged 
to himself. It was situated about five miles 
southwest of the great city’s centre, and was at 
that time the most forlorn and desolate tract of 
country that the mind can picture, Dantean 
imaginations not being excepted. Verily, the 
more a man knows the less he is sure of. 
Although reared in the real-estate business 
from his earlier years. Wild entertained great 


22 

doubts as to the future value of his section; but 
suffice it to say that its real value at the time of 
Barnabee's trade was about one dollar per mile, 
a fact which none knew better than did Mr. 
Harrison Wild. 

Ah, could he have foreseen the future of 
that barren tract! No witch of the midnight, 
stirring with her victim’s bones the foul po- 
tion in her pot of human broth and reading 
moital destinies in the phantasmal steam 
writhing from its capacious mouth, could have 
pictured even faintly the preordinations of 
what time was to develop on those sterile acres. 

The next day dawned serene and beautiful. 
All the east was lined with gold, golden mari- 
golds nodded across the walks, golden pumpkins 
ripened in the fields among the bursting ears of 
golden corn, golden masses of vapor brooded in 
the bending skies. Only the brooks ran silver 
— poor foolish things, they did not know enough 
to trouble themselves about substantial values, 
but little waves chased little waves merrily, up- 
setting the careless goslings, rocking the cow- 
slips, and eddying madly down the pebbly in- 
clines. How bright nature looked to Barnabee 





23 


pen may not depict. Was not his “good time 
coming” come? Was not Fortune reaching out 
her bountiful, benevolent hands to welcome 
him? Dear credulous, kindly heart! 


Early in the forenoon the two men started 
for the city. The sober farm-horse jogging 
quietly along guess(;d naught of the fancies 
coursing through the human brain directing 
his steps, fancies as wild as those cherished by 
Rosinante’s chivalrous master in the good old 
days of romance and ripe Burgundy. Many a 
tale the companions told, many a rich jest they 


exchanged, and the wild birds, unused to the 


sound of human voices, flew twittering from 
tl)eir nests to hear the peals of laughter that 
shook the welkin. Barnabee’s life had been 
for years tame and uneventful, and the reaction 
of this late unusual occurrence roused his dor- 
mant faculties into uncommon vivacity. Al- 
though himself an excellent conversationalist, 
Harrison Wild found in this country gentle- 
man more than his match in repartee and im- 
practicable debate; but when the talk turned on 
business themes of the day he was not unfre- 
quently at fault in his somewhat theoretical 




conclusions. Of his companion’s conversa- 
tional powers Wild was well pleased, for he 
fi'equently found business acquaintances insuf- 
ferably dull, and it was a relief to find this man 
able to amuse himself and inclined to give him 
the credit of doing it; moreover, he was de- 
termined that Barnabee should be entertained 
right royally — until the trade was closed. 

Arrived at the Section, Barnabee became sud- 
denly quiet. His hilarity vanished like smoke 
in a cool breeze. There might be possibilities 
here, but there was surel}- not much comfort. 
The house on this land was old, rambling and 
leaky, with broken lights in the windows, and 
doors off the hinges, and the eves were so nar- 
row that one looking up at them must necessa- 
rily think of a face whose eye^ were devoid 
of lashes. 

“Plenty of room here,” said Wild with a 
great air, ofiBciously throwing open the doors 
connecting the cheerless rooms that seemed full 
of mould and sepulchral echoes. Too much 
room, Barnabee thought, involuntarily shiver- 
ing. 

The barn was much the same, large, rudely 


25 

constructed, in need of repairs. The land 
stretched bleakly away for miles on either side, 
the view broken only by a few poor cottages 
and a log house or two. The grandee from the 
city, riding by in his comfortable chaise, and 
well wrapped in broadcloth and furs, must have 
scanned the forlorn place with suspicious eyes, 
and, pointing to it with his whip-handle, have 
said: That old rookery looks as though it were 
haunted.” 

But when Barnabee reached the city and was 
taken from building to building, while Wild 
discussed architecture and finance, introduced 
to a few pursey manufacturers, carried through 
warehouses of rich firms, , entertained at 
Rice’s Theatre, and finally condescended to 
by Mrs. Wild in an excess of furbelows and 
artificial smiles,his last cautious objections gave 
way and the exchange was agreed upon. It is 
worthy of mention that although Wild intro- 
duced his guest to a certain class of wealthy 
men in the city, he was careful not to make him 
acquainted with any other real-estate agents: 
Mrs. Wild excepted. This lady it was that 
told him how Barber, Billings & Barber had be- 



26 

gun with a yoke of oxen and a quarter-section; 
and how the plethoric Munson had crept up to 
fame and fortune from the stepping stone of a 
paltry forty-acre-lot; and now they were mil- 
lionaires. 

Already Barnabee beheld a brick residence 
on the fruitful farm, with pleasant rooms 
wherein Betty and Nelly shone in frills and 
flounces somewhat similar to Mrs. Wild’s, but 
without the jet-beading and passamenterie trim- 
mings and the air of excessive patronage, — to 
these last he felt an intangible objection. A 
great factory buzzed to one side, turning out 
pumps, churns, mowers, fertilizers, winnowers, 
etc., etc. Had not Mrs. Wild been near to keep 
him in decent subjection by her wooden smile, 
he must have laughed aloud in anticipation. 

There was another individual, the retained 
counsel of Harrison Wild, whose unscrupulous 
assistance in advancing the schemes of his 
patron was invaluable to that worthy, by name, 
Jabez Flint — A Chicago Lawyer, which defini- 
tion is exhaustive. He alway s wore an unsettled 
expression on his face, caused by the absolute 
uncertainty as to the exact date on which 




27 


his case might be called in court, whether to- 
day, to-morrow, next month, next year, or 
never. | 

Jabez Flint was not the least worthy who af- ^ 

fably condescended to the dupe and unwilling- | 

ly, so very unwillingly, agreed to exchange the | 

valuable section (nominally his own, but which 
really belonged to Wild,) for Barnabee’s prolific 
acres and the additional consideration of a 
thousand dollars. This money Wild advanced, 
taking a mortgage upon the section of land as 
security. This philanthropic individual enter- | 

tained the belief that the debt was not likely to i 

be paid by the cultivator of this miserable tract, | 

whose soil was apt to be prolific only of thistles | 

and swamp grass; and he conjectured that the | 

section must eventually return to him when, | 

after the lapse of a few years, it had become im- J 

proved by its tenants’ hard labor and had, per- j 

chance, risen in value through that part of the S 

country becoming more thickly populated. We ? 

have all heard, however, of the lassie who car- ; 

ried her eggs so jauntily to market, planning ' 

how to spend the money she should procure for i 

them; but her eggs were broken and her dreams ^ 




exploded like dynamite under a Czar’s throne. 


Barnabee carefully perused the contract 
drawn up by Jabez Flint, sitting on the edge 
of the capacious office chair with he«ad bent 
I forward and so wise an expression on his face 

I that the two confederates were fain to wink 

significantly at each other with ironical smiles, 
I as if to say: ^‘He is dreadfully sharp, isn’t he?” 

He was too smart for once for the success of 
\ their scheme, for he raised a stubborn objection 

\ to certain portions of the one-sided contract and 

I compelled these worthies to draw up a docu- 

J ment reserving to himself certain legal privi- 

I leges which were his due. When at length the 

contract was re-written, witnessed and duly 
< signed, Barnabee felt as some ancient saint 

I might have done on receiving a papal passport 

\ to the land of the blessed. 




CHAPTER III 


29 



Farewell my home, my home no longer, now, 
Witness of many a calm and happy day. 


■Southey. 


Akd now the Smiths have bidden farewell to 
tbe dear old homestead beside the rippling 
Dupage. The quiet rooms are empty and dark 
with the shadows of closed blinds. Over the 
thresholds, worn almost level with the floors by 
their feet, they will never step again. The 
gardens now so trimly kept will grow up to 
weeds, and the grounds tilled for love will be 
tilled for money. The law of matter and of 
mind is mutability, the earth changes year by 
year, the sun itself moves with its satellites 
around itg central force. 

This morning Mary Ann’s eyes are suspic- 
iously red and she is unusually sober, but she 
smiles resignedly at seeing the elder girls so 
happy. Barnabee, too, is subdued and slightly 


I 


) 

j 

J 






30 


regretful. Molly, alone, is weeping, for she is 
loath to part with the meek-eyed cattle who 
know her and are used to low in welcome as 
she trips across the meadows with her apron 
full of honeysuckle and starwort. The lambs j 

poke their noses through the fence, waiting for 
handfuls of sweet-clover and the touch of her 
soft palm, hoping, perchance, that she may come 
out for a frolic with them; and the poultry j 

clustered around keep up a continuous cackle | 

of anticipation. Nor does Gypsy take kindly S 

to the situation. She finds herself with her j 

litter of three promising pups packed into a | 

box and hoisted up in front of a load of furni- 


ture and just back of Molly’s seat. Truly, her 


box is soft with straw and an ample cushion- 
ing of cotton-batting and her dinner is already 
prepared at her side; but a spring- wagon is not 
a fire-place nor is a ride in a cart in the natural 
order of things. Twice has she jumped down, 
lugging her pups by the nape of the neck back 
to the house, and twice have they been returned 
to the wagon. She now sits disconsolate, a 
martyr to circumstances, and looks down at the 
closed kitchen door as Eve might have looked 






31 I 

back at Paradise. Mary Ann and Barnabee are 
on this load. Behind the wagon two yearling | 

heifers are tied, and in the rear of the next j 

wain, which is a hired concern and driven by j 

the elder girls in partnership, follows Fan’s J 

youngest offspring, a raw-boned pony which | 

promises to become a pacer. The third cart is j 

driven by two farmers’ lads and is devoted to | 

the carriage of grain and of a few turkeys, | 

chickens, swine and Molly’s guinea hens which i 

cackle diabolically. ; 

'‘Get up!” says Barnabee, cheerily. John J 

starts off at a sober pace, but Fan — surely. Fan i 

must be woman’s rights. She is insulted, out- i 

raged by being hitched before such an ungainly | 

load. It has hitherto been her feminine pre- S 

rogative to haul the ‘‘spring wagon” only when | 

loaded with light bundles of straw or other j 

cereal produce, and her heaviest burden has 
seldom out-weighed corpulent Mrs. Barnabee | 

and the bouncing Betty. She puts her foot 
down in stolid resistance. When a fair woman i 

puts her foot down, her action is designated as ^ 

an indignant female protest against male irreg- | 

\ 

ularities; when a mare does the same thing | 







V T'^C 

@ , . ( 



i 

■: 1 
: j 

i 

1 

' i 
:■ 1 
. j 

) 

32 

she is denounced in round terms as being 
baulky. But the most severe strikes come to 
an end; and at length Fan is induced to pro- 
ceed. 

Molly’s chickens followed the procession as 
far as the little school-house, a quarter of a mile 
distant. Here they stopped, expecting to see 
the child run up the worn and bewhittled steps, 
calling to them as was her wont. She called to 
them indeed, but they were faithful to their 
conservative principles and clustered around 
the play-ground to await her return, not com- 
prehending that their little mistress was going 
away to come back no more. 

Along green lanes, through bosky dells and 
; spreading prairie, under the boughs of forest 

1 trees and beside purling streams they proceed- 

ed. When the dusk fell they found themselves 
some ten miles from Chicago. The stars were 
twinkling in the still sky, the great moon hung 
above Barnabee like a mighty silver dollar; 
looking as though it were about to fall and 
crush him with the too sudden acquisition of 
such enormous wealth. The place where they 
paused is now the suburb of Riverside. There 

i 

s 

\ 

. 1 : 

: 

1 

> 

i 

1 







(3 







33 

were at that time but few houses there, and 
near one of the more commodious of these the 
caravansary encamped for the night. It was 
an easy matter to light a tire of dried brush and 
fallen logs, and to spread their meal on the 
withered sward within the ruddy glow. Here, 
warm and sheltered by the trees, the little com- 
pany spent a merry evening. Many a tale of 
history, domestic love, and frolicsome fairies the 
old trees heard, rustling their leaves in vigorous 
encores. Mary Ann had a moral point to elu- 
cidate, Betty, a friendly joke at the farmer lad’s 
expense, and it was fine to hear Barnabee’s deep 
voice rolling out the poems he had used to re- 
cite when a teacher in the famous district school. 
Then followed “ Shells of Ocean f The Old 
Oaken Bucket f and ''''Oft in the Stilly Nights^ 
aud Molly sang in her child’s untrained voice 
a solo to the bright star above her : 

“Little star that art in heaven, 

Under where the angels sing, 

Little star that art in heaven. 

Glittering and glittering. 

Who and what are you, that nightly 
Shine so tenderly and brightly? 

Are you not a cherub fair 
Winging in the azure skies? 

Have you fluttered out of eden 
Through the gates of paradise? 
ir>oes heaven’s liarht around you cling, 

Glittering and glittering?” 






34 

Now came up the morning beautiful with | 

; dew sparkling on all the emerald meadows, and i 

; purple mists exhaling dreamily into the sky | 

j where a few pale stars faded into the roseate ^ 

; glow. The fire was rekindled, breakfast eaten, | 

I the horses foddered and harnessed and general 

I preparation made for an early start. J 

I Grypsy roamed to and fro, evidently disquieted | 

I despite the friendly advances of a Newfound- j 

land that came out from the farm-house to | 

j make her acquaintance. Near by a rillet J 

I trickled stagnantly through the underbrush, ; 

forming many a shallow pool beneath the ^ 

I withered blue-flag leaves. Making her way | 

I down the tangled bank, in order to lap the | 

water, Gypsy found something which she drag- :: 

i ged upward, depositing it on the grass. It was | 

5 only a puppy, and it was quite dead. For some 

moments she regarded the unfortunate with 
melancholy eyes, and then turned from it to 
i watch her own nurslings at their clumsy, 

I happy play. The mother instinct was rife 

^ within her poor brute’s heart. Drawing the 

I little animal toward her, she licked it tenderly, 

\ and strove to warm it by nestling it under her | 





5 own body. But life would not come back to J 

J the clay. Realizing this, she dug a grave and 

; laid the tiny body therein, adjusting its limbs 

with gentle touches and smoothing its furry 
/ coat with a consideration almost human. Hav- ; 

ing filled and levelled the grave, she was about ; 

to leave the spot when the Newfoundland ap- ' 

? proached, quick to detect the smell of flesh. 1 

; She drove him back with threatening growls, | 

: and returning to the place she proceeded to J 

; heap mold upon the little mound, snuffing ^ 

^ vigorously meanwhile, until there was no scent S 

; left by which the dead creature’s burial place i 

j might be revealed. Her own puppies came | 

5 tumbling through the grass, and she hastened 

' toward them with a more pathetic tenderness, 

, while little Molly, who had been watching her, 

; turned away with misty eyes, 

s An hour later, the little procession might 

I have been seejj slowly wending along the Des- 

plaines River, where it made a crossing and 
I stopped to water the cattle and panting horses. 

The dense blue of the sky stretched afar, bend- 
j ing down to meet the horizon, to which the 

dried prairies seemingly extended, the view 





36 


< 

s 




broken at intervals by lines of dun and crim* 
son forest or country homes. 

Calling the attention of his family, Barnabee 
pointed to the northeast, where spire and dome 
glittered in the sunlight from afar. 

Lake Michigan, too, beyohd the city gleamed 
like fire as she reflected the rays of the morn- 
ing sun. 

“See, Mary,” he said, “yonder lies Chicago, 
destined to be the great metropolis of the 


< 

s 


I 






37 


I CHAPTER IV. j 

( N 

I I 

i The simple joys of home the sweetest are, J 

J They are like blossoms in the dusty way j 

Through which the traveller plods, or like the brook ? 

That soothes the parched throat with its crystal spray, j 

Or like the psalm that in the hour of griet > 

Brings to the spirit faith and calm relief. ^ 

— Hibldagarde, ) 

J And now the old rookery on the Section had | 

become so cheerful with life and laughter, so | 

tidy through industry, so aristocratic with its ^ 

; green blinds, piazza and porch, that it did not J 

j know itself. | 

J Some people, who are skilled in mathematics ^ 

i but are away behind in prosody, may insist that ; 

there is no such thing as a house or a sane per- ^ 

son not knowing it or himself. In corrobora- 
tion of the above state‘ment we would cite the 
> illustrious example of the old woman of anci- 

: ent history who went to market “ her eggs for j 



/ 


38 

to sell,” and who fell asleep on the king^s high- 
way, and thus became the prey of 

“ A peddler whose name was Stout, 

He cut off her petticoats all round about.” 

On awakening to a sense of the eccentricity 
of her attire, this mediaeval dame could not be- 
lieve in her own identity, and she decided to 
leave the settling of this confused question of 
personal or impersonal entity to her sagacious 
dog which, she believed, could distinguish truth 
from subterfuge. 

Barnabee had saved a few hundred dollars 
from the proceeds of the sale of the produce of 
his previously owned farm. This money he 
spent in repairing the buildings, making fences, 
buying necessary furniture for the house, a 
gala dress for each of the girls, and, lastly, a 
family equipage. 

This equipage is worthy of remark. There 
had been much active discussion relating to its 
purchase for a week previous to that noteworthy 
event. Mtliough the vehicle was second-hand 
it was ‘‘just as good as new,” and it was built 
previous to the deluge; nor must the sacrileg- 
ious and naturally profane level unhallowed ridi- 











) 

) 

\ 

) 

s 

) 

) 

39 

cule at the antiquities of time, among which 
are the venerable Mathusala, Barbara Frit- 
chie’s old grey head, and the Smith rock-a-way. 

When, after the consummation of the pur- 
chase, this equipage was brought home, hauled 
by the delighted and curveting Fan who was 
quite beside herself with vanity, it rattled like 
a rickety wind-mill and gave ample warning 
of its approach long before it appeared to the 
view of the delighted household. 

Barnabee drove the staid old horse with a 
grand flourish, a proud smile upon his counten- 
ance. He halted in the generous door-yard in 
the midst of an admiring group. Molly clap- 
ped her hands, and Betty suggested that the 
family coat of arms be painted on the side, an 
idea which Nelly seconded. 

“Run and get me my paints, Molly; and 
papa Barnabee, do please sketch me out a coat 
of arms.” 

“ I’ll do it!” said Barnabee with enthusiasm, 
as elated with the idea as a boy would have 
been. Seating himself on the grass, he took 
paper and pencil and drew a rough sketch of 
the old coat of arms as he remembered having 

1 

1 

j 



- g 







40 

seen it pictured in a book of heraldry long 
years ago in his grandfather’s library. Nellie, 
kneeling at his side, watched his strokes with 
eager interest. Betty leaned over his shoulder; 
even Pan laid back her ears and whinnied. Mrs. 
Smith regarded the group with a goodnatured 
smile. It was a foolish idea, to be sure, but it 
made them happy, and it did no harm, thought 
the sensible woman. Then Molly came run- 
ning across the lawn like a partridge and carry- 
ing the box of oil paints. Nellie was an artist 
in a small way, and had painted many a sylvan 
scene of harebells on green leas, swallows flying 
over the foamy waters of rills, morning moons 
in blue skies that brooded above sweeps of prair- 
ies where kine wandered. 

Fan having been unhitched, the decoration 
was begun. Rolling up the sleeve of her ging- 
ham frock and displaying a fair, round arm, the 
girlish artist reproduced the design in colors on 
the side of the carriage box. Molly enjoyed 
the diversion with the others. It was very 
pretty, and all that, she said, but a bright steel 
plow-share, a rake and a bunch of clover, or a 
sheaf of yellow wheat and a scythe would have 





i <■ 

! V 

i : ■! 

1 ' '' 

41 

j 

- 1 

been more appropriate ; for was not Barnabee 


i 

a tiller of the soil on whose brow the beads of 


■ 1 

perspiration told of homely toil rather than of 

i 


aristocratic ease? The child was witlessly be- 

1 

: ' ; 

ginning to argue on the propriety of things, 



without understanding that true fitness is true 



art. 

1 


The first glorious ride in the family carriage, 


; S 
- ^ 

; we musjnot omit to mention that. Their gala 

J 

j- 

^ dresses of bright vari-colored delaine were don- 

1 

i 1 

ned by the three girls. Mrs. Smith brought out 

J 

< i 

/ : 

her “gaslight green’' merino that made the day- 

J 

1 

light green of the landscape look dull in com- 

■ J 

( 

;: 1 

parison, and Barnabee brought from the old. 



old chest thejsacred , swallow-tailed coat in which 



he had courted and wedded Mary Ann twenty 

) 

. 1 

years ago. It had been so carefully pre- 

J 

' 1 

f served that the creases of the tailor’s goose 


: i 

1 were still faintly visible. Betty and Nelly ex- 

J 


changed agonized glances, but neither remon- 

j 


strated, for they loved their father and knew 

s 

< 

that he had often made sacrifices to ensure 



their comfort. The good man looked peculiar. 



to say the least; he reminded one of Noah and 


j , 

the patriarchs as he stepped briskly into the 

, 

1 

^ T 





42 

carriage with the split-tailed, stout-waisted coat 
filled to bursting, for Barnabee at forty-eight 
was not so slim as in that spring-tide of man- 
hood when the down was just darkening on his 
upper lip and his cheek was peachen as a girl'^s. 

The rig rattled along the road like a thresh- 
ing machine gone mad. It passed the district 
school-house, and the shock-headed children 
gazed with such animated admiration as filled 
Barnabee^s heart with pride and pleasure. He 
had been elected a member of the School Board, 
which preference he esteemed a great honor. 
The committee was composed of seven mem- 
bers, the township at that time being com- 
prised of but nine distinct families, only two of 
which spoke English. 

In a short time the little party found them- 
selves in Chicago, through which they drove 
with flying colors, quite unconscious of the 
amused smiles of the populace and the many 
jokes bandied at their expense. 

How I am to be envied,” thought Barna- 
bee. “ Here I have my own carriage, and in it 
as fine a wife as the Mayor^s own, and three 
daughters that can not be surpassed for wit and 




43 

good looks. How these dull fellows on foot 
must wish for such possessions: ‘Whew!’ they 
say, ‘ there goes Barnabee Smith — come out in 
grand style, a fine rig, a dashing team and a 
coat of arms. And he is on the School Com- 
mittee. Getting to be a big man, is Barnabee.’ ” 
Now and then Barnabee reined up the sober 
old horses with the air of one who wrestles with 
the mettlesome mouths of thoroughbreds, and 
saluted an acquaint:’ nee on the sidewalk; the 
folk at home were inquired after, crops discus- 
sed, and the great sale descanted upon which 
the lucky land-owner had made through the 
agency of his estimable friend, Mr. Harrison 
Wild/’ 






44 


CHAPTER V. 


Oft, .what seems 
A trifle, a mere nothing, by itself, 

In some nice situations, turns the scale 
Of fate, and rules the most important actions. 

—Thompson. 

The next morning at school Molly was sur- 
rounded by the admiring Teutons and ques- 
tioned in lively German about the carriage, the 
ride^ the city, what she had seen, and if she had 
had any bon-bons. 

“ Oh, how fine it must be to ride in a carriage 
and stop at the toy-store where there is no end 
of candy r’said a fraulien with long hair braided 
and tied with a bit of red ribbon ; to which 
Molly responded: “Fine^ indeed.” 

She was very happy that day. Her mind was 
full of pleasant memories of what had transpired 
on the preceding afternoon, she had seen so many 











m 


( 





45 

pretty things, so many new faces, snch great 
buildings and long, handsome streets. 

She walked home from school in the bright 
light of the September afternoon, parting with 
the children shortly after leaving the school- 
house, for none of them lived in the direction 
of Barnabee’s. She gazed around her over the 
green and level prairie and thought how beau- 
tiful it was. The big sun-flowers and ox-eyed 
daisies nodded to her, swayed by the soft breeze, 
and she nodded in response, laughing at the odd 
fancy of their regarding her with friendliness. 

‘‘ Golden-heads,” she said, do you greet the 
little country girl?” 

But the golden-heads could not answer, for 
they had no voice, and the thought came over 
the child that the life of the flower was a secret 
to her and shut out from her by the fact of her 
humanity — she did not say superiority; the 
thought of human superiority crossing her mind 
suggested comparisons that were odious ; she 
could not understand the shallow egotism that 
impels mail to undervalue the instincts of the 
brute, simply because he possesses a separate 
facult}^ of reason. Everything was perfect in 

^ , 

S 

< 

<> 


1 

1^^ 

r™ 









S 46 

) 

its way and place to the unsophisticated little 
dreamer. But, if one would insist on relative 
estimation, she was sure that Gipsy, although 
she could not talk, knew quite as much as Peter 
Graff or Henrietta Snyder. 

As she mused thus a buggy passed her, the 
I horses going at a leisurely rate. 

: The driver, a pleasant-faced gentleman with 

the air of one well to do financially, nodded to 
her as he passed by. 

I I “ Can I give you a lift, little lass?” he said, 

I turning in his seat. 

I ''No, thank you. I am almost home,” poinl- 

j ing td the farm house only a short distance be- 

j yond. 

I " Very well,” he said, and drove on. But, un- 

I noticed by either of them, he had dropped some- 

I thing, and a moment later Molly’s light foot 

I I struck against it in the dust. She stooped to 

I I see what lay in her path. It was a large bill* 

I book and was stuffed to its fullest capacity with 

I notes, drafts and money. She understood at 

I I once that it must have been lost, and that un- 

doubtedly by the gentleman who had only a 
few moments before asked her to ride. She 




47 

called out to him, but he did not hear, and ex- 
erting her nimble feet to their utmost action, 
she raa for a considerable distance in the wake 
of the buggy, hallooing to its occupant. In 
vain. Panting for want of breath, unable to 
proceed save at a slow run, and with starting 
tears, the child still followed. Mollie’s pet dog, 
‘‘Mr. Ned SmifF,’' not divining the importance 
of Mollie’s overtaking the fast disappearing 
vehicle, playfully interrupted her progress by 
hanging on to her skirts. Thrice was he shaken 
off, but again did this capricious pup take hold. 
It fortunately chanced that the gentleman 
turned to look behind him and beheld the 
child’s eager gesticulations. Turning his horses’ 
heads he was soon at her side. 

Why, my dear,” he said anxiously; “ what 
is the matter? Tears!” 

She handed him the pocket-book. 

You dropped it, sir,” she said. 

He received it with an exclamation of as- 
tonishment. 

“ And you have run nearly a njile to do me a 
favor? Many a one would have kept it and 
never said a word.” Molly was shaking the 




@ — ( 


!' 

48 

dust from her dress and did not reply. Here 

little one,” he continued, selecting a generous 
note from his bill-book, let me make you a 
present.” 

She blushed up to the roots of her silken 
hair and down over her white throat, and drew 
back, shaking her head. 

I did only what was right,” she said quickly. 

‘‘ All you need to do is just to say ‘ Thank you, 
miss.’ ” 

The gentleman looked at her with a bewild- 
ered expression on his countenance. Such frank 
honesty and prim propriety were rarities, surely. 

He burst into a hearty laugh. 

“ Bless your dear heart,” he exclaimed. 

“ ‘ Thank you,’ is it? Well, well! ^ Thank 
you, miss; thank you.’ Now I can at least 
take you home.” 

Cramping the wheels, he grasped her dimpled 
hand and lifted her up beside him. As they 
rode along he gave her his name, which was 

John Tenbroek. He was a cattle dealer by pro- 
fession and dealt largely in rare blooded stock* 
Indeed he had just completed some very im- 
portant sales, the proceeds of which were in 

^ i' : 

1 

N ■■ 

j- ■■ 


1 — _ — _ 






49 

the pocket-book that she had found, and he 
was about starting back to his home in the 
East. 

Barnabee was seated on the front piazza, 
newspaper in hand, as they drove up. Jump- 
ing down, the gentleman helped Molly to alight, 
swinging her fully a yard in the air and caus- 
ing the blood to tingle in her veins. He then 
hitched his horses and, uninvited, followed her 
into the house. Barnabee rose to meet them, 
whereupon the stranger, in nowise abashed, 
held out his hand and told him how he had 
come to make his little daughter’s acquaintance. 
Mrs. Smith and the girls were listening at the 
door. 

“ I wanted to give the lass something for her 
trouble, and for the great service she has rend- 
ered me.” 

“She did not accept any, — ahem! — reward I 
hope?” returned Barnabee, quickly, growing 
red with injured pride. 

“ The little rogue would not take a single 
penny !” 

Barnabee’s honest eyes grew bright with 
commendation. “Just like her mother!’^ he 








, ■ $ 

1 

( 

. i 

1 

50 

thought. And Mary Ann meanwhile was 
thinking: “The child’s a true horn Smith.” 

The gentleman continued: 

“Now,” he said, “I don’t want to pay this 
little girl for being honest, nothing of the kind. 

But I do wish to show some gratitude for the 
great favor she has done .me; and, as she her- 
self will not take any compensation, I would 
like, my friend, to offer a suitable present to 
you to be used — I hope, my dear sir, you are 
not off:.>nded?” 

“ Not at all,” said Barnabee, stiffly; “but it 
is against my principles to offer a child of mine 
any pay for doing a duty.” 

The gentleman, slightly annoyed, was at a 
loss how to proceed. Here was the metal of 
true honesty and commendable pride; it had 
not been adulterated by the dross of interest, 
policy, or slack morality. He regarded Barna- 
bee with admiration and respect, and noticed 
the lines of integrity and resolution that gave 
to his kindly face a gentle and unbending dig- 
nity. It was late before John Tenbroek rose 
from the hospitable table of the country house 
prepared to resume his drive; but this Barna- 

1 


f V 






51 

bee would not allow. There was a spare cham- 
ber for his use, whose downy pillows were cased 
in the snowiest of linen, and in whose stiff little 
old English vases were spiigs of poppy and 
mignionette. His horses had already been 
stabled and fed by the chore-boy, a German 
youth with a bashful air^ who ate at the table 
with the family and guest, and who used his 
knife as being more efficacious than the fork 
in pitching food down his throat with expedi- 
tion. The traveller was only too well pleased 
of the opportunity to remain in the pleasant 
household that night, and to start for Chicago 
in the early morning. 

Two weeks went by. The blue October day 
came in with drowsy breezes and the soft 
thud of falling nuts in the woodland. Molly, 
out in the generous country yard with Gypsy, 
beheld a wagon coming toward her from the 
north. It was an express wagon, and the 
driver stopped his horses and hailed her. 

“Little girl,” he said, “do you know where 
B. Smith lives?” 

“ He lives here, sir.” 

“Well, this calf is for him,” he said, laconic- 




ally, “ It’s addressed to M-o-l-l-y, Molly 
Smith, care Barnabee.” 

‘‘A calf!” questioned Molly, in astonish- 
ment. 

“ A calf,” returned the man, “ and it’s a 
daisy!” 

He lifted the little sleek, dark-red crea- 
ture out of the wagon and carried it into the 
yard, where he untied the ropes that cramped 
its legs. It rose with an effort, stretched and 
shook itself, and with a sudden leap started 
helter skelter across the yard, over flower- 
beds and cabbage patches, into the orchard, 
around the house, Gypsy tearing frantically 
after without wind left for barking. 

The expressman handed Molly a small pack- 
age, and asked for her father, whose signature 
was required. The latter hastened in from the 
meadow beyond to inquire the meaning of such 
undue bovine familiarity. He opened the 
packet, to And a letter from John Tenbroek, 
saying that the calf was a present to Molly in 
token of the esteem in w^hich the owner re- 
garded her practical honesty. The little ani- 
mal was a valuable calf of the stock of The 


I 







53 

Pride of Waddington, a genuine blue-blooded 
Jerse3^ and was not to be sold for less than a 
thousand dollars. The packet also contained 
a little book giving the pedigree of the Pride 
of Waddington, who with heels in the air and 
head down was dancing the can-can on Betty’s 
choicest bed of petunias and stock-gillies. 




54 


CHAPTER VI. 


Private property is the guarantee to individuals of the 
fruits of their own labor and abstinence. 

—John Stuart Mill. 

The bine days of May were come. The elm 
and maple shook out their dainty foliage like 
maidens who plume themselves for the sum- 
mer fete with curling locks and eyes aflame, 
and rose-bud lips that part over pearly teeth. 
The prudent ground-lark sought amid the start- 
ing clover for a nesting place, and the wild 
thrush ruffled his bronze-red throat and whistled 
like the Pied Piper of Hamelyn till it seemed 
as if all who listened must follow him where- 
soever he wist. 

As Barnabee paused in the furrows of the 
meadow where he was plowing, and patted 
John’s coat and Pan’s mane, while the faith- 




! f ul creatures rested for a few moments, he list- 

j ened to the bird’s carolling and imagined the 
; Pied Piper 

: “ tall and thin \ 

•> With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin, s 

J And light loose hair yet swarthy skin, I 

\ No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin, > 

; But lips where smiles went out and in— i 

; There was no guessing his kith and kin !” j 

J There were the rats leaping madly into the | 

? Weser, and Barnabee sighed to think of the 

I child leaving its mother’s arms, the babe creep- ' ^ 

^ ing from the beldam’s knee, and joining the 

j host of j 

J I “ children running, > 

; All the little boys and girls, J 

I With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, \ 

) And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls, | 

? Tripping and skipping merrily after | 

( The wonderful music with shouting and laughter. > 

There was in his kindly heart that same poetic 
instinct that made Burns to sing of the daisy 
and to deplore in flowing rhyme the homeless- 
> ness of the fleld-mouse. 

j His desultory musing was brought to a con- 

j-* elusion by the appearance of a neighbor, not 

I Patrick Murphy. This individual leaned over 

I the rail-fence smoking an exceedingly ancient 

I clay pipe, which looked as if it might have 






® 



56 

been an heirloom descended through genera- 
tions of Murphies while yet they were flourish- 
ing in primeval simplicity on the green bogs 
of Ireland. The smoke curled upward and 
floated away in the clear air — the aroma of 
Bridgeport. Patrick clinched the stem of his 
pipe closely between his teeth and addressed 
Barnabee. 

What is the use of wasting time and labor 
on that land?” he asked. Nothing will grow 

there but weeds. You can get four dollars a 
ton for the hay, and that is all the good the j 

soil will ever do you, for fertilizing is too ex- 
pensive to pay.” 1 

Alas, this evil prophecy afterward proved 1 

but too true. A contrary energy seemed to j 

follow in the wake of the sower, and instead of 
green grass and sprouting blades of young corn, 
great weeds, sorrel, burdock and mustard grew 
in the furrows and sucked up the sparse juices 
of the land. After an honest and persistent 
effort Barnabee at length ceased to wrestle with 
the opposing forces of nature, and settled 
again into his old habit uf invention. Books 
of mechanical inventions and patent reports 

1 

\ 

j 


1 



57 

were heaped promiscuously on the table of the 
little room he had dignified by the name of lib- 
rary, the principal furniture of which consisted 
of a small book-case, a long table with an arm 
chair beside it, a globe, a home-made galvanic 
battery and a motley collection of mechanical 
drawings and original unpatented instruments 
in miniature, half constructed. He had, as he 
supposed, a contrivance of great ingenuity 
which came as near as anything yet discovered 
to the idea of perpetual motion; it would run 
for a considerable length of time, but how it 
was to be applied to machinery was a question 
that baffled the inventor’s active calculation; 
consequently, the reward offered by the United 
States Government seemed quite as unattain- 
able as it had been ten years before, when 
dreams of wonders in mechanism had first begun 
to stir dully in Barnabee’s mind. This symp- 
tom of fanaticism is observed to exist in the 
minds of men who may be undeveloped giants 
in mechanism, but lack power. Nick Wen- 
gler, who lived just west of him, was prone to 
scorn these scientific vagaries whose import- 
ance his meagre mind could not grasp. We 




have all heard of the ow^l’s advice to the eagle 
who sought to explore the skies: 


“ Give up this profitless waste of wing; 

^ Stay close by me ; I’ll teach you to sing 

i j To-hoo! hoo! hoo-oo! 

; All creatures are sure to loose their senses 

. If they venture above the trees and fences. 

) You can’t go up any higher than I ! 

^ Nothing to roost on ! Fool to try: 

^ You’d bump your head against the sky, 

> To-hoo ! hoo ! hoo-oo !” 

^ ! This good Teuton was inclined to regard 

I Barnabee with suspicion; his learned talk was 

^ I maniacal to the staid old fellow, who knew that 

) the sun “rose ” in the morning, and that water 

s I ran down an incline, but never cared to inquire 

' I into the theory of a world that revolved from 

I I west to east, or a law that attracted all things 

J I centrally. At one time, indeed, Wengler an- 

^ I ticipated an explosion when he ventured into 

5 the library and beheld Barnabee light a lamp 

; with a bit of yellowish-white dust and an icicle 

) match, for the former was fond of chemical ex- 

j periment. 

; “By grashus!” he exclaimed, turning to 

Murphy, ‘‘ dot vas a funny mans. Somedimes 
; ! 1 dinks he vas crazy mit his berbedual mozions 

; I und dings, und somedimes I dinks he vas der 





59 


smardest veiier as never vas. I nix verstay 
dose kind of dings.” 

Concluding prudence to be the better part of 
valor, and doubting what evil powers might be > 

at work in the jars of the galvanic battery (»n 1 

che bench, Nick backed quietly out of the lib- j 

rary and seated himself in the farthest corner 
of the sitting-room. But Murphy listened 
with intense admiration to the discourse of this \ 

man who was familiar with the mysteries of ' 
science, and was capable of constructing an in- 
strument which might be efficacious in assist- | | 

ing an earl, duke, or conservative politician 
unceremoniously through the portals of the 
pearly gates. For the first time he took off his | 

hat to this inventor and straightened out the 
collar of his red flannel shirt. And, as he 
followed Barnabee into the sitting-room, he \ 

said : I ' 

I 

There’s a mighty power in chemistry, Mr. ! 
Smith, a mighty power. Sep^irate from the * 
mere physical phenomena is the use to which I 

these forces may be put. For instance: dyna- i ^ 

mite is dynamite, and an explosion is an explos- ? 

on, bub when there’s an English duke blown 



60 

up it is more than the exhibition of a simple 
material force.” 

“So, so!” exclaimed Barnabee, wheeling a- 
round and facing his guest. “ Your political 
principles are ” 

“ Fenian ! fenian to the back-bone. Com- 
munistic. There ’s only one use for gunpowder. 
No killing of ducks and pigeons for me. I 
would shoot at statesmen and land-owners!” 

' “ Why man/’ expostulated Barnabee, mildly, 
“ what good would it do you? There would 
be rulers, monopolists of power, despots even 
in a community where socialism prevailed.” 

“Possibly. But there would be no large 
land-owners.” 

Murphy scowled as he spoke and seated him- 
self with a sullen gesture. He had in his mem- 
ory at that moment the picture of a cottier’s 
home on an estate at Killaruey, a wretched 
hovel with a straw-thatched roof and clay floor, 
and with holes for windows through which 
came plenty of air and cold, the only luxuries 
of the poor tenants of a powerful English lord 
whose London house was built out of the blood 
and souls of his wretched renters; and his mind 


61 

was filled with loathing of the unjust laws of 
the entailment of estates as practiced by the 
nobility (.>f the mother country. 

“ You might add another clause,” returned 
Barnabee, thoughtfully, '' and say: ^ no home- 
owners.’ Possibly, nay, probably communism 
might be better than entailed inheritance of 
land. For a community to own its own city 
and unite labor and interests might be prolific 
of excellent issues. But there are draw-backs. 
Any rational and unbiased individual must ac- 
knowledge that no inan has a right to fence off 
a great tract of land given some old ancestor 
by a baron that he may fatten his deer and 
pheasants in it, while all around him thousands 
of V. retched families are starving and others 
are unable to buy a foot of land, but must rent 
it at the exorbitant rates caused by excessive 
competition, while the drone that owns it fat- 
tens upon their endless labor and sacrifice. 
That is one kind of land-ownership. Now, my 
friend, there is another kind: that of the large 
farmer who employs his laborers at living rates, 
and who is willing to dispose of property or to 
rent for nominal and adequate values. In the 








— 



;> 

62 

present state of society a man receives a set 
price for his labor with which to provide him- 
self with a home and comforts; what more 
would he receive were communism to prevail? 

He must still work for Lis bread. No idlers 
would be permitted; tramps would still be 
tramps, and lynch law would still be in force. 

You own no land now, let us say; you work 
and receive a certain salary adequate to j'our 
needs and to the procuring of certain luxuries, : 

which money you may spend as you see fit. 

What difference would there be between your 
present suppositional position and that in which 
you would be placed were Fourierism to pre- 
vail?” 

What difference?” exclaimed Murphy, ir- 
ascibly. “ A mighty difference. Then the 
capitalist of to-day would be on a level with 
the mechanic, the railroad man with the labor- 
er who lays the iron ties.” 

Barnabee waved his hand deprecatingly. 

“Ah, there you err, ray friend. Do you think 
that the change in the ownership of property 
from the individual to the mass is going to raise 
the unlettered or dull man to the position of the 

\ 

1 

') 



, — — — gj 






63 

experienced, studious and shrewd one? No, no. 
Brains are brains, and muscle is muscle. The wit 
that lifts the individual to a high place men- 
tally or monetarily will keep him there. You 
will always find brains at the head of any equi- 
poised, economical system, just as you find the 
motive power to the front of the train of cars. 
The shrewd, self-made capitalist of the mo- 
nopolistic system would he the dictator in the 
socialistic community. There must be leaders, 
call them by what name you may — kings, poli- 
ticians, monopolists. Humanity at large rep- 
resents a corporeal body infiuenced by the dic- 
tation of the thinking faculty. A community 
without an adequate head would be like the poor 
lunatic v/hose wits are unbalanced — at times 
foolish, illogical, wandering, tending toward 
ruin, and probably dangerous.” 

“We would choose our own rulers,” returned 
Murphy. “Not the man of money but the 
man of capacity would be at the head of af- 
fairs.” 

“ But that is what the Americans do now. 
Have I not seen you at the polls busily urging 
the merits of your favorite candidate?” 


/ 






® 


: i 

\ 

i 

64 

“ That is not the question,” replied Murphy, 
evasively. ‘‘ What we consider of most mo- 
ment at the present ^ime is the question of land 
tenure. The soil is God-given ; It is the pri- 
vate property of no man. Its use should be 
equally divided.” 

“ Very easy to say. But how is such a change 
to take place without the perpetration of in- 
computable injustice? We have the example 
of the old races who acquired land by conquest, 
multiplied like bees in a hive until the land 
could no longer support them, and therefore 
started out again to acquire new territory. If 
men were in truth a little lower than the angels, 
if their instincts were high and their powers 
of self-sacrifice were remarkably developed, if 
their love for humanity at large equalled their 
love for private family, and they were capable 
of practicing moderation in all things, a uni- 
form distribution of land would be productive 
of good. Suppose my section was tillable and 

I were to divide ib among one hundred families 
of two people each. For a while all would go 
well, but in the course of a short time the popu- 
lation would have increased to such an extent 

( 

: _ < 

j- 

1 ■ 

' ’ ■ 

i 

: i 

j 




' 

' ■ ■■' • ■ . 



m 


65 

that the soil would not furnish support for the 
large number. 

Why are the Irish so oppressed? The land 
is over-stocked. The landlord has so many 
tenants vieing with each other for possession 
that the price of rent rises to an enormous sum, 
in many cases to five or six times as much as 
the price that the produce of the land leased 
would bring if disposed of in the market. The 
cottier promises to pay more for the rent than 
the value of what he is able to raise on the soil. 
No matter how he labors to till and improve 
the property, the fruits of his industry and fru- 
gality go to the landowner, and at the expira- 
tion of the term of his lease he still finds him- 
self in debt. He therefore loses heart, hope, 
energy, and makes no effort to do more than 
keep his family alive in the wretched hut, 
where they exist in constant fear of the brutal 
bailiff at the door. He has not so much as the 
serf, who is at least an accessory to the soil, 
and as such is assured of a common maintain- 
ance; nor is the slave, who is valuable as an 
article in the market if in no other sense, less 
assured of the means of subsistence. No mat- 




ter how many mouths there are to be fed in the 
i cottier's family, they can be fed upon the pro- 

duce of the land, and the surplus in any case 
goes to the land-owner. There is no oppor- 
tunity for him to thrive, no chance for culti- 
I vation and refinement; the lower instincts pre- 

S vail as a consequence, and he lives alone to 

multiply and to aggravate the already fatal in- 
fluence of a too prolific population. English 
landlords, born to luxury and bred in idleness, 
j are used to living without labor, and so long 

i as the laws of entailment enable them to extort 

I high rents at the price of their tenants’ happi- 

; ness they will continue to do so. I hold that 


land should be used for the good of the indi- 
vidual who tills or otherwise manages it. No 
entailments for me. This commodity of real 
estate should circulate in a steady market ac- 
cording to the needs of a population. If every 
man owned his own cottage and piece of land 
attached, if he had purchased it with the pro- 
ceeds of honest labor, and had planted the vines 
that trailed over his porch and the seed of the 
red clover that nodded in his meadow, there 
would be no use for dynamite. Despots would 



m 



67 

have little more than a nominal power, mankind 
would advance in the virtues and grow wiser 
and kinder, and the superabundant population 
would suffer a decrease in the right direction. 
If every mechanic, every laborer owned an acre 
or two of land, a home and a family, and a so- 
cialistic riot was to take place, would these men 
unite in pillaging the houses of others, in burn- 
ing and destroying property and weakening 
the safety of life and home? Emphatically, 
no! What the evils of the day need to effect a 
cure are: Land-ownership among the working 
classes, and education among the common peo- 
ple. Communism, — that is a word used by 
knaves and insurgents to stir up the brute 
passions of the unthinking. ‘Equal rights,’ 
they say . ‘ Equal properties.’ Only one side 

of the question is explained to them^ and the 
picture is inspiring. But there are other sides; 
this question of communism is an octahedron.” 

“ You talk very sensibly, Mr. Smith/’ re- 
plied Murphy. must acknowledge that 

your argument is weighty. But it does not 
convince me of the futility of my own beliefs.” 

“ Naturally not. Any sturdy plant of opin- 



68 

ion which takes firm root in a reasoning mind 
is apt to throw out its suckers in all directions 
and imbibe nourishment from all quarters. 
There are certain elements which combine to 
make up the peculiar tissues of this weed of 
theory, and they are sucked in by the fibres to 
the non-absorbence of other essences. You are 
judging this question of land tenure by noting 
the examples of its abuse in the old countries. 
Put aside that pernicious standard and consider 
the property laws of this country. America 
acknowledges no nobility, has no serfs nor 
slaves. Every honest citizen is her son. Here 
land is a commodity in tlie market and is free 
to all. Here every man who wills may be a 
property-holder, and the muscular hand of in- 
dustry may write its owner’s signature over 
the broad and rich scrip of fruitful acres.” 

The time was coming when Barnabee was to 
hear more of this subject, and was to see a prac- 
tical illustration of the question on both sides. 
But he thought no more about it then, and the 
summer rolled away, winter followed, and a 
second season of ripening fruits passed into the 
sear and yellow leaf. 


69 


CHAPTER VII. 


Famine is in thy cheeks, 

Need and Oppression starveth in thy eyes, 

Upon thy back hangs ragged Misery, 

The world is not thy Friend, nor the world’s law. 

—Shakespeare. 

At length had come the winter with its hoar 
frost and icicles as cold as the frozen hearts of 
selfish men. The little stream forgot to laugh, 
the forests stretched out their naked arms under 
a bare sky through which winds howled and 
hail fell down; the whole earth was chill and 
bleak and forsaken. The summer preceding 
had been a hard one for both the laboring and 
financial classes. Crops had failed, capital was 
locked up, and wages were lower through com- 
petition caused by the retrenchment in labor 
of employers. 

Nor had the universal difiBculties of the time 
failed to affect Barnabee’s prospects. In vain 




70 


i 


N 


had he wrestled with the un prolific forces at 
work in the soil of his barren section. Drouth^ 
the burning suns beating upon ground in need 
of irrigation and sterile for want of proper fer- 
tilization, had united with natural agents to 


resist the persistent endeavors of the patient 


husbandman. The wild marsh hay brought 
only the lowest prices in the market. The 


wheat and oats reproduced little more than the - 
original amount of grain cast into the furrows, 


and the corn grew so dwarfed and unprolific 
that the very swine that fed upon it v/ere lank 
and hungry. Vegetables and the products of 
the dairy and the hennery were produced in 
sufiScient abundance to feed the family and the 
domestic animals, and from the wool of a dozen 
sheep the careful house-wife had spun and dyed 
cloth enough to make gowns for herself and 
the girls, and a linsey-woolsey suit for her 
good-man. Nevertheless, there were many un- 
satisfied wants in the little household, and the 
dark shadow of impending evil hung over all 


Night had fallen over the Smith homestead, 
a black night with no moon and a dense layer 
of ragged clouds shutting out every ray of the 




N 





71 

silver star-light. How the wind howled around 
the house upon the Section, pushed against 
the door, and rattled the shutters in dire fore- 
boding. It blew into the chimney and sent a 
puff of icy air and black smoke curling out of 
the grate and into the faces of, the little family 
that clustered dejectedly around the dying fire. 

Barnabee pushed back his chair with a ges- 
ture of resigned despair, and despair was the 
last trait to be found in Barnabee’s character. 
He had been to the city that day to make an 
attempt to have his time on the mortgage pro- 
longed. One extension had already been granted 
by the urbane Jabez Flint to whom he had been 
referred, on condition of the payment of a fee 
to Mr. Flint, which was, of course, divided 
with Wild, according to a pre-arranged nego- 
tiation. Barnabee had travelled along the 
streets for hours searching for a loan office, 
but the same answer had been invariabl}" given 
to his anxious inquiries: “ We can not loan on 
outside property this year.” 

At length, footsore, disheartened and almost 
despairing, Barnabee returned home to find rest 
and comfort at his own fireside among those 



72 

who, alone, of all the world, sympathized with 
him. It was now that Mary Ann’s quiet affec- 
tion, which had been accepted as a simple duty 
through the long years, shone with a new lus- 
tre to his more discerning eyes, as on his return 
she grasped his hand reassuringly, and drew 
forward his arm-chair before the warm blaze. 
The hand laying on Barnabee’s shoulder trem- 
bled involuntarily, but the smile upon her lips 
was hopeful and calm. 

How neat the plain supper-table looked with 
Betty pouring the steaming tea, albeit the lump 
in her throat would not let her swallow one 
teaspoonful of the decoction. Barnabee looked 
around the room made tidy by deft and loving 
hands, at the dried grasses festooned above the 
doors, at the chintz-covered furniture, and 
sighed to think that these things might ere 
long become another’s, for ruin stood gaunt 
and ragged on the very threshold. How could 
his children endure want, poverty, hardship? 
He put the unendurable thought from his mind. 

“ Ah!” sighed he, to the good mother at his 
side, “ had I only been able to have gotten a 
patent on my perpetual motion!” 


73 

One sympathetic and compassionate look 
from the matter-of-fact Mary Ann crushed his 
momentary aspiration. When she looked at 
him like that all his fine notions of mechani- 
cal invention seemed as wanton and foolish as 
thistle-down blown away by a puff of cool 
wind. 

Day after day passed by, but there came no 
change in times for Barnabee. Molly’s pet 
Cochin-China hens, her speckled Dominiques 
and snow-white bantams^ raised from game 
ancestry, had been sold by dozens in order 
that the family might live off of the proceeds. 
Many a good cry had the little maiden all by 
herself, hidden in the hay-mow, over this 
sacrifice of her pets whom she had seen 
emerge from their shells to life; aye, she had 
even broken the shells for many a restless 
little beak that pecked weakly within and laugh- 
ed to see the bright head peek out and stare up 
at her with eyes that twinkled like fire-flies. 
Her chief solace in this hour of tribulation 
was the Pride of Wadding ton. The Pride 
had grown iniio a handsome heifer with hair 
like velvet and eyes as mild as starlight, 



74 

which said to Molly, in the dumb brute’s hon- 
est way: I love you. Of that Molly was we\ 
assured, for did not the creature low at the 
sound of the child’s voice, or at the sight of 
her skipping across the meadow? She would 
leap over a five-barred gate like a hound and 
run to meet her little mistress, and she 
could lift the latch with her horns, for she 
had grown to be the smart heifer that might 
have been expected would spring from such 
distinguished blood. Indeed, she had at times 
proven too smarb for Barnabee’s peace of mind. 
A turnip-patch or a field of corn were induce- 
ments which the Pride did not scorn, and 
fences could not keep her out. Then, too, she 
appeared to have inherited Bohemian instincts; 
in fact, she was a very vagabond at times, for 
she would now and then disappear from the barn 
yard and go gallivanting all around the coun- 
try, feeding on other farmers’ timothy and 
cl ver till she was like to burst. Barnabee 
would mount old John and go from farm to 
farm hunting for her, wild with anxiety, and 
Molly would outvie Niobe in weeping for the 
ungrateful cow which, perchance, even then 



75 

lolled in a paradise of cabbage-planfs, or daintily 
nibbled the geraniums from the flower-urns of 
a suburban lawn. 

But the Pride had become less sleek and fat 
than was her wont. The dry marsh hay and 
the meagre allowance of bran were beginning 
to tell upon her flesh and color, for even the 
poor beasts in the stable suffered in conse- 
quence of the hard times. Old John had been 
sold to Wengler, and Fan appeared depressed 
and lonesome despite Molly^s frequent visits 
to her stall, for the poor mare missed her com- 
panion of many years.* The pens of the swine 
were empty, and the cattle-stanchions almost 
unused, for instead of a dozen head of stock 
only three were now kept, two milch cows and 
the heifer. 

One morning Murphy called. He appeared 
unusually thoughtful and sober, and did not 
mention his business until just before he left. 
As he rose to bid Barnabee good-by he ap- 
peared to have something on his mind which 
troubled him. 

“ You do not seem to have received the news 
of the foreclosure?” he said, questioningly. 



76 

“How?” returned Barnabee, not under- 
standing. 

Murphy cleared his throat. Taking a paper 
from his pocket, he opened it and pointed 
out a paragraph whose import was of interest 
to the farmer. It was an advertisement of 
the foreclosure of the Smith Section. 

The paper dropped from Barnabee’s hands 
and rustled to the floor. For a moment he 
stood like one stunned by a sudden blow, and 
then he sank back into his seat with a groan. 
“No, no!” he cried. “It cannot be. He could 
not be so cruel — so cruel!” 

“ I wish I could help you!” said Murphy in 
commiseration of his friend’s distress. 

The little family, forgetting their own peril, 
strove to encourage the unhappy man. He 
was so heart-broken and haggard that Mary 
Ann could hardly endure to see him start off 
alone to the city. She felt that his trip must 
be in vain. 

Harrison Wild received him with the same 
bland smile with which he had beguiled him out 
of his hard-earned farm on the Dupage river. 
Really, he had no influence in the matter, he 




77 

said, and could in no wise effect a compromise. 
It probably would be far more efficacious if 
Mr. Smith were to visit Jabez Flint in regard 
to the case. To Jabez Flint, then, he proceed- 
ed, and this individual, although deeply sorry 
for him, immensely sorry, in fact, could not 
think of extending the mortgage a second time. 
To have done so once was an indication of the 
most extreme generosity exhibited as pervad- 
ing Mr. Flint’s heart. An angel could not 
have been asked to do more. (Not that angels 
are supposed to hold mortgages on real estate, 
although some of them may have our notes for 
the payment of mortgages or benefits confer- 
red.) Did Mr. Smith require more of a mortal 
than he would ask of a saint ? 

There was a sneering hypocrisy under the 
cover of Flint’s professions of sympathy that 
caused the blood to boil in Barnabee’s veins. 
How sincerely he despised this rascal with his 
sleek, cool exterior and deceitful protestations 
of inability to comply with the poor man’s reas- 
onable demand, while in his eye shone the cruel 
triumph of the hawk that strikes the fiuttering 
pigeon with his merciless bill and stains its 



78 

downy plumes with the crimson life-blood. 
Barnabee would sooner have struck off his right 
hand than sue for mercy of Harrison Wild or 
his accomplice, Jabez Flint, whose double-deal- 
ing was now clearly manifest to him. But ihe 
thought of ruin and poverty was terrible, not 
because of the suffering which it would bring 
to himself, but because of that which must fall 
upon the weaker members of his beloved fam- 
ily. He therefore controlled his aversion and 
implored of them to give him time, to have 
mercy upon his wife and children. In vain! 
There was no miracle to call forth the waters 
of humanity from the rocks of their worldly 
hearts. 

Passing out from Flint’s office, he walked 
heavily along the street, caring not which way 
he went. Unconsciously he proceeded in the 
direction of Halsted street and toward the via- 
duct. So rapt was he in his own sad cogita- 
tions that for some time he did not notice the 
character of the crowd surrounding him. Their 
sullen voices and frequent jostlings aroused him 
at length, and he looked around, to discover 
that he was hemmed in on all sides by a surg- 




79 


ing, fierce, democratic collection of men of all | 

trades and professions, but alike in one thing, 5 

that they were without work, money, or the S 

necessaries of life. They were talking excit- j 

edly in hoarse voices and gesticulating in vig- j 

orous emphasis of their assertions, their hag- | 

gard faces and wild eyes lending a sort of terror j 


to the force of their vindictive argument. Now | 

and then sullen murmurs rose to clamorings, | 

and grew comparatively quiet again. Instinct- j 

ively Barnabee knew that he was in the centre | 

of a crowd intent on riot and bloodshed. A J 

fervent prayer for, and sympathy with their | 

suffering surged over him, for his great heart | 

was like a lyre that responded eloquently to i 

the touch of the player’s impetuous hand. i 

Owing to the embarassed financial condition { 

of the country, ten thousand laborers and me- | 

chanics were unemployed, and these, with those < 

dependent upon them for support had been al- | 

most destitute for months. The intense se- 5 

verity of the winter multiplied the miseries of ^ 

their precarious condition. The relief socie- S 

ties, although useful in alleviating the wants J 

\ 

of a portion of the sufferers to a considerable J 



m 


1 


80 

extent, were comparatively powerless to effect 
the permanent good of so many. There were 
families starving in the attics and cellars of 
tenement houses, to whose pangs of hunger 
were added those of inefficient clothing and 
shelter, while many lay dying in the cold days 
of the winter months without fire. Men whose 
hands were calloused with the labor of years 
beheld their families perishing for want of the 
commonest necessities, their little hoards van- 
ishing, their future prospects of comfort utter- 
ly ruined. Want, cold, famine, plunder, mur- 
der: these plagues gaunt poverty had let loose 
in the heretofore simple and honorable homes. 

In such emergencies there are always dema- 
gogues in plenty who, fired by the exigencies 
of the moment, eagerly suggest modes of over- 
coming the difficulties through the very means 
which must necessarily multiply and intensify 
the evils under whose weight they already stag- 
ger. 

Such an one was even now haranguing the 
excited populace, and with specious logic was 
imbruing them with the erroneous idea that 
their misery was due alone to the selfishness 



81 

of the capitalists and party-politicians of the 
country, the two classes which are lauded in 
times of prosperity and denounced in the hours 
of hardship and loss. There was plenty of 
capital with which to hire and support the 
working classes, insisted the orator. A certain 
amount of money was in circulation: where 
was it? In the banks, in the banks that re- 
fused to cancel the drafts presented and falsely 
announced themselves insolvent. All around 
were homes of luxury where the bread that the 
men that built them starved for was thrown to 
the dogs or wasted on carriages and fine rai- 
ment. The rich men’s children were surfeited 
while the babes of the brawny workmen starved 
and perished from want and cold. Since the 
millionaire had no humanity, but grasped his 
gold with the miser’s clutch, justice demanded 
that it be wrenched from him. ^Tlunder! plun- 
der!^’ cried the orator. Death to the rich who 
turned a deaf ear to the cry of the perishing. 
Let the city be sacked and burnt! Outraged 
justice demanded blood, 

A tall man dressed in broadcloth, and hav- 
ing the air of one accustomed to command. 



82 

brushed through the concourse and mounted 
the eminence from which the insurrectionist 
was speaking. His eyes flashed with anger, 
and he prefaced his remarks with a vehement 
gesture of his white hand that silenced the yell- 
ing crowd by its imperious signiflcance. 

Are you men?” he cried. ^‘Are you men 
or beasts that you are influenced by this fellow 
to commit depredations on the homes of hon- 
est people? They have earned their wealth, 
they have a right to it. Had I a mountain of 
bread it would be mine to dispose of despite the 
howling of all the beasts in creation.” 

A roar of rage swept up from the crowd, and 
a brawny fellow stept forward and thrust his 
clenched fist in the speaker’s face. “No it 
wouldn’t!” he said with an oath. “ We’d take 
it, all of it, for our babies, and you’d do the 
howling, by God! ” 

“Stand back!” cried the capitalist, angrily. 

“ Not for you r in a tone of menace. He 
snatched at the gold fob dangling from the 
rich man’s watch chain, and wrenching it from 
its fastening, cast it on the ground with a ges- 
ture of intense contempt. The capitalist 


83 

sprang upon him but was sent reeling back 
among the insurrectionists. And then occur- 
red a transaction that froze Barnabee’s blood 
and made his heart stand still in horror. A 
pack of human wolves, the yelling crowd leaped 
upon the offender and bore him down, shower- 
ing blows and curses upon him with unspar- 
ing hands. The unfortunate man staggered 
blindly, covered with blood and bruises, his 
garments torn away, his sight destroyed, his 
implorings for mercy and shrieks of agony un- 
heard amidst the shouting of vindictive voices. 

“ Hang him!” clamored the mob. “ l.et the 
villain who ignores the wretchedness of the 
masses die the death!” 

Almost while they shouted, a limp figure, 
torn, broken, misshapen, dangled from the 
nearest lamp-post, and the blood that dripped 
down was licked up by the yelping dogs. 

^^Destruction! murder!” was the cry. “Let 
the city be sacked.” 

“Destroy! burn!” howled the mob with one 
voice. They surged furiously around Barna- 
bee even as water infiuenced by a tremendous 
heat seethes with excessive motion. Rousing 


84 

hi» faculties, which for the moment had been 
stupefied with horror, Barnabee elbowed his 
way through the crowd and soon found him- 
self back in Center street, where he had hitched 
his horse. There were others who suffered far 
more than he at this disastrous hour, and his 
anxiety because of his own trouble was merged 
in a deep sympathy for the miseries of others. 

Of all the sad men seeking their hearths that 
night there was perhaps none more disheart- 
ened than Barnabee. How should he find the 
strength to tell Mary Ann and the girls of his 
failure? Alas, they had known before he 
started out on his errand that he must fail of 
its achievement. 



m 


85 


CHAPTER VIII. 


O, Sick to death, 

My legs, likeloaden branches, bow to the earth, 

Willing to leave their burdens. 

—Shakespeare. 

Oi^ the following morning Barnabee re- 
mained at home, rapt in unpleasant cogitation 
regarding his anticipated poverty. The old 
clock ticking on the pine shelf pointed its black 
fingers to the hour of ten and struck swiftly 
and with a noisy clang which sounded not un- 
like a fire alarm. A moment later Barnabee 
heard steps on the porch, and a peremptory 
knock at the front door was immediately fol- 
lowed by the unceremonious entrance of a con- 
stable and a custodian. Custodian! What is 
a custodian, do you ask? He is a taker — a man 
with one black eye and a nose that has been 
fractured by a violent concussion, and he is 
warranted to take anything he can lay his 



86 

hands on. He has a friend in the constable 
and gets five dollars a day, he reserving fifty 
cents and giving the constable four-dollars-and- 
fifty-cents for hiring him. 

This worthy informed the farmer that he 
had come with the intention of levying on his 
personal efiPects in order to collect the amount 
of a small bill due one of Mr. Smith’s creditors, 
a miller. 

This is an unnecessary insult!” cried Bar- 
nabee, trembling with indignation. Never be- 
fore had he been sued, and the act seemed to 
him a direct accusation of dishonesty. “ The 
miller has known me for years and is aware 
that I always pay my debts. Moreover,” he 
continued, bringing forward a well-thumbed 
copy of the statutes, everything that I pos- 
sess is exempt from levy.” 

Turning to the laws relating to the holding 
of personal effects, he read aloud the paragraph 
substantiating hiS assertion, while his daugh- 
ters clustered around him and listened with 
anxious attention. 

The arrogant constable snatched the volume 
from Barnabee’s hands with the air of the ped- 



87 

agogue who hears a child lisp falteringly the 
letters of its primer, and read the statute aloud 
for the second time in a very ungrammatical 
and unelocutionary manner. 

As the mill-owner would have been responsi- 
ble for any illegal action in this case, the offi- 
cial deemed it advisable to take no chances, but 
to leave the debtor unmolested. He bade him 
good afternoon and departed in his buggy. 

After that Barnabee had more than a few 
visits from dunning lawyers and assertive tax- 
gatherers, who threatened to sue and sell until 
his very skin seemed likely to be sold to the 
tanner in order to satisfy their various de- 
mands; until, at last, the dark days merged all 
their darkness in that February morning, cold 
and damp, when the house upon the Section 
was to pass into the hands of strangers. How 
dense the clouds looked to his aching eyes that 
had not been closed during the preceding night. 
It seemed as though no ray of sun might ever 
pierce them again to warm the desolate land. 
The roads were covered with frozen sleet, and 
a bleak wind was blowing, and it blew right 
into Barnabee’s heart and chilled it. 




88 


The old bell in the courthouse had just rung 
out the hour of nine, its strokes sounding like 
the tolling after a deaths to the unfortunate 


mortgagor, to whom this day seemed the last 


on earth. He wished indeed that he might 
never behold another sunrise. All his hopes 


and plans had come to naught, and he was to 


lose the home for which he and Mary Ann had 
labored for many years. He could have cried 
like a child iu his sorrow, and yet he appeared 


to be quite calm and subdued. He had ridden 


into town on a load of hay with Murphy^ who j 

tried in his rough way to solace and cheer him. i 

Ah, well; he was but one of the panic-ruined. | 

How the old bell in the court house tolled! ; 

One more hour and he would be — homeless! | 

I 

It was nine o’clock at the Smith farm. Molly | 

stood on the side steps throwing corn to her i 

chickens. She was thinking of Betty’s red | 

eyes and her mother’s stolen tears, and was | 

very sad; for she knew well what trouble was 
come upon them, although she was too young 
to realize its significance. While thus engaged, \ 

she noticed a gentieman coming along the 


m 




89 

walk. On seeing that he was observed he 
touched his cap. 

‘‘Does Barnabee Smith live here?” he in- 
quired. 

“ Yes,” replied Molly. “ But he has gone to 
town. He is in trouble, — poor papa.” 

“ Are you not Molly, to whom Mr. Tenbroek 
gave the Jersey calf?” 

“ Yes, sir. I fed the Pride this morning,” 
said the child, pleased with this allusion to her 
favorite. 

“ What would you take for her, little one?” 

A pang shot through Molly’s heart, but she 
put away the desire to refuse all offers, for she 
thought of her parents’ need. 

“The gentleman said she was worth one 
thousand dollars,” she replied, innocently. 

The visitor smiled. “ Is that the lowest sum 
you would take, my business-like little maid?” 

“Yes, sir. That was what Mr. Tenbroek 
told me she was worth. Come in and talk with 
mama.” 

He followed her into the house and tendered 
his request to Mrs. Smith, while Molly stood 
by with heart bursting with sadness at the 



90 

thought of losing her pet, but resolutely crush- 
ing back the selfish tears. Perhaps this sacri- 
fice might save her father from financial ruin. 
The bargain concluded, the money was counted 
out and placed in the hands of Mrs. Smith, 
who signed the receipt. 

With nimble feet and flushed cheeks and the 
first laughter that had rung through the old 
house for days past, the elder girls flew to the 
stable and harnessed the quiet mare, who felt, 
intuitively, that something good had happened. 
She pricked up her ears and whinnied, impa- 
tient to be off; and when Betty took the lines 
in her warmly mittened hands and bade her go, 
she flew along the road light as a bird and al- 
most as swift, for the sleighing was good and 
her burden far from heavy. 

On they went, merrily, swiftly, chirping to 
Fan, laughing to each other as they peeped out 
from the buffalo-skin coverings. The trees 
whizzed past, the shining ponds glittering with 
ice, the snow-freighted hemlocks and stretches 
of prairie lay wide and far behind them, and 
the streets of the city grew narrower and pop- 
ulous. 


91 

And now the court-house appeared to view, 
and around its northern door a little group of 
men were gathered, for there were a number 
who, even in these hard times, had money to 
invest in a good thing, and this section was 
going ‘‘ dirt cheap.” Five minutes more and 
the sale would begin. The auctioneer was 
even now clearing his throat preparatory to 
effective elocution. To one side Barnabee 
Smith was standing, his eyes so sad that he 
hardly dared lift them lest they should betray 
the wretchedness of his aching heart. But he 
turned with the rest to look toward the pant- 
ing animal that was reined in almost at his 
side, and beheld with astonishment that this 
racer was none other than old Fan, and was 
driven by Betty. 

‘Tapa Barnabee!” exclaimed Molly in a glee- 
ful voice, quite unconscious of the many eyes 
riveted on her innocent face. 

“Papa Barnabee!” called Betty, more sub- 
dued of tone but with a reassuring smile that 
calmed the perturbation of her father’s mind, 
who was half inclined to believe that the trio 
had partly lost their wits. 


92 

The reason of their unanticipated advent was 
immediately made known to him. The calf 
sold, and a thousand dollars paid down? He 
could hardly believe it even when Molly, her- 
self, put the money in his trembling hands. 
Still considerably dazed, he left them and 
sought Jabez Flint, to whom he proffered the 
money, hoping thus to cancel the principal 
debt and obtain time in which to pay the in- 
terest due, which amounted to two hundred 
and forty-two dollars and fifty cents, extra. 

But the urbane Mr. Flint entertained no 
idea of losing so excellent a property as this 
Section, toward which the city was so rapidly 
progressing. It was generally understood that 
he and Wild were to buy it in together. 
Therefore he inexorably refused to counten- 
ance Barnabee’s petition and treated him with 
the contempt which an arrogant financier might 
have bestowed on a beggarly Lazarus craving 
the crumbs of minor ofBce. 

Poor Barnabee! his hopes, raised so high, fell 
suddenly. He walked away, ashamed, hum- 
bled. His step was unsteady, his lip quivered, 
he did not notice Murphy's friendly smile of 



93 

encouragement, for he was not then in a con- 
dition to think of his surroundings. How should 
he have the strength to tell the happy-hearted 
girls of this new disappointment? He turned 
hesitatingly toward the door, and looked out 
at them, and the eyes of the suicide gazing 
down at the chilly river are not more despair- 
ing and sad than were then those of Barnabee 
Smith. 





94 


CHAPTER IX. 


What ! we have many goodly days to see: 

The liquid drops of tears that you have shed 
Shall come again, transformed to orient pearl, 
Advantaging their loan with interest, 

Often-times-double gain of happiness. 

t—SHAKESPEARE. 

Molly’s blue eyes were gazing upward into 
the sky. What was that ? A ray of sunlight ! 
Surely some cherub, winging beyond the 
clouds, and having been informed by electric- 
ity of the transactions taking place at the 
north door of the court house, felt compelled 
to tear aside the gray vapor and peep down at 
the lovely little girl with the happy face who 
had so unhesitatingly sacrificed her greatest 
treasure for her father’s sake. The ray from 
the rift fell on Molly’s hair and lit it with a 
sudden flood of sun-light, and a gentleman 
who had been watching her for some time 






95 


< now pointed out tlie child to his companion, 

j The latter, a portly gentleman, wearing a seal- 

; skin cap which had the appearance of being 

J unsteady, regarded her for a moment with un- 

) usual interest. Moved by a sudden impulse, 

^ he approached her and held out his hand. 

) Aren’t you the little girl I gave the calf 

^ to?” he asked, as if he were not entirely posi- 

? tive of her identity. 

5 Mr. Tenbroek!” cried Molly with de- 

^ light. And then a shadow passed over her 

I face, for she was distressed at being obliged to 

tell him that she had only that morning dis- 
posed of his valued gift. 

i Poor papa is in trouble,” she said, prefac- 

) ing her remark by an explanation of their 

I reason for being at that place. 

I In trouble?” he returned. How is 

I that ?” 

: And then Betty told him of the land ex- 

; change, the mortgage given on the Section, 

: and the foreclosure and sale which was to 

: have taken place that very morning; of how 

stock-farmer of local .importance had chanced 



96 

to come to the house in order to lind if he 
might buy the calf, of how the bargain had 
been effected, the money paid down, and the 
heifer taken away by her new owner. 

“ But the thousand dollars are not enough,” 
exclaimed Tenbroek, quickly. “ There’s the 
interest to be paid. And Flint is a great one 
to put on the thumb-screws. I’ll fix him. 
I’ll fix him! Just trust to me, little one, 
every time.” And with a reassuring smile to 
Molly and a slight swerve in his gait, he hast- 
ened away in search of Barnabee. He stumbled 
against him the next moment, and turning to 
see who had almost destroyed his equilibrium, 
recognized his old acquaintance and seized 
him by the arm. 

Bless your soul!” he exclaimed with the 
hilarity of one who has but just celebrated 
his latest business success on the “ rock and 
rye ” plan. “ I’m glad to see you — glad to 
see you! So Flint is going to get your land, 
is he? We’ll see about that,” nodding sig- 
nificantly and with vehemence. “ Little 
Molly didn’t bring me that lost pocket-book 



97 

^ and save me thousands of dollars for nothing. 

I’ll stand by you, Smith. I’ll stand by you. 
I And when John Tenbroek says that, you can 

bet on him every time!” 

I Without allowing the bewildered man time 

I to understand his meaning or even to recog- 

^ nize in himself an old acquaintance, Tenbroek 

linked his arm in the farmer’s and half led, 
half dragged him toward the auctioneer whose 
I ‘^one, two, three!” were already beginning to 

j rumble in his capacious chest. 

Jabez Flint and Harrison Wild exchanged 
significant and sneering glances. Was the 
old crank” intoxicated in celebration of his 
loss? They were drunk on a different sort of 
stimulant, the wine of success, of valuable 
I possession, of a large property in considera- 

I tion of a trifiing sum of money in payment 

I thereof. Wild had some troublesome debts 

on his hands, to be sure, but this accession 
would set him all right again. He stroked 
his beard with the complacency born of ease 
of mind and conscience; and Jabez crossed 
his leg over his knee, folded his arms across 



98 

his chest, and leaned back in his seat and 
talked in a loud voice with assured triumph 
in his face. Seeing Barnabee thus uncere- 
moniously led forward by Tenbroek, he poked 
Wild slyly and facetiously with his fore-finger 
to attract the latter’s attention, and they both 
shook with suppressed laughter. There was 
something so irresistibly funny in Barnabee’s 
wild, sensitive, frightened face with the sunk- 
en, haggard eyes. Very funny, very funny it 
proved. 

The auctioneer threw back his shoulders 
preparatory to commencing the sale. 

‘‘ Once, twice, thrice. Gone! — ” 

“Hold there, you fellow!” shouted Ten- 
broek, taking a huge roll ot bills from his 
pocket-book and thrusting them into Barna- 
bee’s hands. “Wot so fast. This little prop- 
erty’s redeemed from that ’air mortgage; 
and if there’s anybody browsing around here 
who thinks he’s going to get it, let him pitch 
in and bid,” casting a look of defiance upon 
the astonished lawyer. 

A look of blank dismay swept across the 



99 

faces of the confederate scoundrels. They 
leaped to their feet, and all their arrogant 
pride and vicious self complacency fell away 
from them like a rent garment. 

Flint strode forward with blazing eyes and 
apoplectic face. “ How dare you interrupt the 
sale!’’ he cried in a voice choked with rage. 

The fellow is drunk!” 

A true word,” sneered Tenbroek, and 
spoken by Jabez Flint at that. But not 
drunk enough to have lost his wits. I’ll back 
this gentleman every time,” turning to his 
companion. “ Here are ten thousand dollars, 
and if more is wanted I can get thirty thou- 
sand.” 

Barnabee, dazed by the suddei;i change in 
affairs, looked from Tenbroek to the money in 
his palm and again at Tenbroek, not under- 
standing. And then he laid a heavy, trem- 
bling hand on the drover’s broad shoulder, but 
said not a word, for his quivering lips refused 
to speak; and there were tears on his cheeks. 
Happy Barnabee! 

Silencing the auctioneer, Flint drew Wild 



100 

aside, holding him for some time in anxious 
consultation. They realized that the wealth 
that lay in those suburban acres was forever 
lost to them. As there was no alternative, 
Barnabee was allowed to pay the debt in full, 
and their business connection with him was 
thus concluded, to their own detriment. 

The usual crowd of idlers which frequent 
these sales and public gatherings quickly 
comprehended the significance of the situa- 
tion, and at the conclusion of the bargain sent 
up a cheer for the drover; while Jabez Flint 
and Harrison Wild, followed by the hootings 
of the assembly, and feeling very small, de- 
parted from the scene of the transaction with 
praiseworthy expedition. 





lOi 


CHAPTER X. 


CONCLUSION. 

Happiness courts thee in her best array. 

—Shakespeare 

Several years rolled by, and still things did 
not materially mend on the Section. The 
thistles, indeed, had succumbed to prairie fires, 
the marshes had been partly drained, a por- 
tion of the land had even been improved, but 
by far the greater part of it was still produc- 
tive only of swamp grass and wild rabbits. 
Little Molly had grown into a slender slip of 
a girl, 


“ Like the new moon 

Sure to be rounded Into beauty soon.” 


But she had still a child’s heart in her bosom 
albeit she was grown wise and skilled in 
mathematics and the rudiments of Latin, hi or 




102 

had she forgotten the heifer with breath red- 
olent of sweet clover, that had been her favor- 
ite in times past. And the Jersey, too, enter- 
tained a lingering regard for the quaint fam- 
ily that had been so kind to her, and for the 
plump little hands that had used to pluck for 
her such delicious tidbits of meadow fescue 
and kale. 

One day it chanced a drover passed that way 
with a herd of cattle, there being among the 
others a little red cow with a board on her 
liorns betokening that the evil propensities of 
leaping fences and opening gates had brought 
to its owner the accompanying ignominy of 
artificial restraint. On asking her price of 
the herdsman, who stopped at the farm to get 
a drink, Barnabee was told that she was a 
valuable Jersey. He had known it! When 
first he beheld her he had recognized in her 
the Pride, and he regarded her with the eyes 
of a covetous Beppo, for to him she now ap- 
peared in the luck conjuring role of La Mas- 
cotte. Her coming back appeared to him to 
be an omen of good-fortune, and when he saw 




103 


her make her way into the yard, uninvited, 


and begin to browse on the lawn, he was fain 
to call his family out to welcome back their old 


favorite. Her present quarters were evidently | 

quite to the cow’s mind, and she obstinately | 

refused to accompany the herders any farther. 

It was not until Molly came to the rescue and 
went some distance with her that she could S 

be induced to proceed. Nor was her fidelity j 

to old friends unrewarded. In the coarse of | 

time she again became Molly’s property, giv- ; 

ing to the little family such creamy milk as j 

the gods had preferred to ambrosia, and wad- 
ing in meadows of lush grass that grew rank | 

and gay with wild flowers that brushed her J 

velvet thighs. 

By hard labor and careful economy the J 

Smiths had been enabled to keep their prop- i 

erty iree from all encumbrance; and although j 

they were often in need of various necessities, | 

their minds were free from harrowing cares, | 

and they lived a quiet, contented life. ) 

Late one April afternoon, as Barnabee was 
resting on his porch after a hard day’s labor ! 







104 


in the fields, he perceived a buggy coming 
along the road from the north. Kising, he 
went down the path to the gate, where he 
stood indifferently watching its approach. As 
it came nearer he recognized in its occupants 
none others than Harrison Wild and Jabez 
Flint. 


The former individual hailed him. 


“ How are you to day, Mr. Smith?” he 
asked, his countenance beaming with benevo- 
lent benediction and the exceeding great joy 
of the guileless in heart. 

“ This is a very comfortable place,” chimed 
in Flint, harmoniously. 

“ Well,” returned Barnabee, ironically, ‘fit’s 
a safe place. I much prefer living here on 
this forlorn Section to having an office in the 
vicinity of yours.” 

Wild coughed slightly. Jabez Flint smiled; 
Barnabee’s arrows of sarcasm could hardly 
pierce his armor of unalloyed brass. He waived 
a response to the immediate remark, and said: 
“ What will you take for the Section now, 




Mr. Smith?” 


m 




105 

^ It is not for sale at any price or on any 

J terms.” Barnabee picked up a pine twig and 

j began whittling, laconically. 

5 ‘‘You don’t mean to say that you have no 

I price!” exclaimed Flint in a a banteringly 

I coaxing tone intended to be exceedingly en- 

^ ticing to the only partly sophisticated land- 

I owner, who had not as yet been brayed in the 

I mortar forty times. “ I never yet came across 

( a yankee with no trade in him.” 

“ Gentlemen, we have made all the trade 
I we ever will make.” The knife peeled off a 

I shaving in a deliberate and scientific manner. 

I “ If this is your final determination,” re- 

I plied Flint, hoping to bring Barnabee to 

5 terms by pretending to depart, “ we must say 

? good'day and retrace our steps.” 

i But Harrison Wild determined upon an- 

I other course of action. He alighted and, ap- 

I preaching Barnabee, began in his old elo- 

quent way to speak on things in general, lead- 
? ing quickly back to his original topic of sales. 

I The times were unusually good, he said. There 

was large ground for speculation in grain, and 




106 

otherwise in the cities, and speculators were 
making fabulous fortunes, etc., etc. Landed 
property was apt to lie on the hands of any 
other owners than agents, and the money tied 
up in it were better liberated and used in an 
ever active and remunerative commerce such 
as was afforded by metropolitan traffic. How 
long have you stuck to this land, Smith? And 
what has it profited you? You must feel like 
a cabbage, rooted, and going to seed. Farm- 
ing causes a man to become either a dull ani- 
mal akin to his own cattle, or else it turns 
him into a vegetable.” But the city, that 
element to be found in the crowded, bustling, 
quick-witted centre of commerce and finance, 
was what was eminently essential to the de • 
velopmentof the higher elements of the mind 
of man. Then, too, if one would have land, city 
property was infinitely better in a commercial 
point of view, as it could be sold at any time 
and for first prices. The country was pros- 
perous and money circulated freely; this was 
a good time to sell and get a handsome price. 
Wild knew of a gentleman who wanted just 



107 

such a fertile, prolific, highly cultivated farm 
as Barnabee’s; why should he not reconsider 
^ his rash determination to hold on to his farm? 

Could he not be persuaded to seize so fine an 
opportunity to obtain a good price for his 
acres ? 

I ‘‘No, sir!” returned Barnabee, decisively. 

J “ I repeat, most emphatically and for the last 

time, that I will sell for no price nor upon 
, any terms to you or to any otlier person whom 

i you may send here for the purpose of negoti- 

I ating a sale.” The sharp blade cut the twig 

^ clean in two with one politic stroke. 

I “Well, that settles it,” remarked Wild, as 

^ he turned to the buggy with a lugubrious ex- 

^ pression upon his crest fallen face and heard 

I Flint’s consoling “ I told you so!” 

0 temporal 0 mores! To think of the 
I eloquent Wild wasting so much Quackenboss 

I and Wayland on a block-headed, cabbage- 

J rooted clod-hopper! It was unmitigatedly 

exasperating. 

Seldom, indeed, did Barnabee now visit the 
great city, whose environs were being swiftly 




108 

pushed southward and nearer the Section. His 
purse was too slender to admit of extravagan- 
ces^ and prudence required that he keep out 
of the way of the temptation which resided 
in the shops. Thanks to John Tenbro^k’s 
grateful generosity, he had been given ample 
time in which to pay back the small sum of 
borrowed money. While still on the Dupage 
farm, and comparatively flush of funds, he had 
loaned two hundred dollars to a young man 
in Naperville who was just starting in busi- 
ness. This person had lost everything during 
the panic, and Barnabee had no idea that he 
would ever receive back the sum lent. But, 
on the same day of Wild’s visit, who should 
present himself at the house on the Section 
but Henry Colter, the debtor. He had had a 
windfall in the shape of a lucky speculation 
and was come to cancel his old debt to his 
former friend. And Barnabee who, as Wild 
drove away, had sighed to think there were 
so few honest men in the world, welcomed his 
visitor with a dual gladness. 

Colter remained all night under the Smiths’ 



109 

roof, and in the morning the two men started 
out to visit the city, which was a big event to 
the stranger in those parts. The family equi- 
page, so seldom used, was hauled out and di- 
vested of its mouldy coverings somewhat as 
the rare silver of careful house- wives is dis- 
embalmed Irom flannel underwear or chamois 
skin, and old Fan and Colter’s fagged hack 
were hitched up together. 

Barnabee was impelled by a latent desire 
for variety to take a roundabout course, and 
one which he had not traversed for two years 
past. We will follow the south branch of 
the river,” he said. There may be a few im- 
provements in that locality which I have not 
seen.” His presage was simply theoretical, 
and made with an inner consciousness that the 
place was still, probably, as uninhabited as the 
deserts of the East. What was his surprise 
to find that blocks of tenement houses were 
going up, factories being erected, lumber ves- 
sels laden to the gunwales sliding up the river 
near at hand, bringing in material for build- 
ing, and that the whole scene presented an 



110 

appearance of bristling activity. And now 
he understood why Jabez Flint and Harrison 
Wild had made that late attempt to purchase 
his farm, and he laughed aloud. At the mo- 
ment of his delight he perceived a short dis- 
tance away a knot of men with maps and plans, 
who were evidently discussing some project 
of profound interest He hailed a friendly- 
looking business man standing near. 

What are you consulting about, my 
friend?” he asked, wonderingly. 

A mammoth project, sir. A corporation 
of New York men are going to build a big 
reaper factory, in which it is said 2,000 hands 
will be employed.” 

Barnabee let fall the reins in dumb aston- 
ishment, and sat with open mouth and unsee- 
ing eyes staring straight before him into 
space. Was he asleep? Was he out of his 
head? Old Fan jogged on, and the hack 
dropped her clumsy feet shamblingly, and 
Colter whistled, and, unheard, congratulated 
him on the raise in value of his Section which 
this innovation must cause. He transacted 




Ill 






his business in the city and talked with Colter 
and others in an absent manner, for his 


thoughts were at home on the farm. He was 


dreaming of his mechanism of perpetual mo- 
tion as applied to the machinery in the new 
factory, of his latest invention combining 
reaper, rake and binder in one, the most im- 


practicable thing under the sun. Mary Ann 


should cut his hair and make him present- 
able, and he would put on his precious swal- 
low-tailed coat of auld-lang-syne and subject 
the plan of his valuable invention to the great 
capitalists. The price of a patent was a small 
thing to these monied magnates; and he 
would sell them the contrivance for a fabu- 
lous sum, etc., etc., etc. Thus this peculiar, 
restless, impracticable man went on scheming 
and dreaming fantastic dreams of famous in- 
vention and wealth accruing therefrom; but 
he never thought that the price of his land 
would increase to such an extent as to render 
his patents of comparatively little monetary 
value. 

On the long summer evenings Barnabee 








112 

used to sit listening to the grasshopper’s whirr 
and the tinkle of cow-bells; l)ut now the car- 
penter’s hammer could be heard late into the 
night, demonstrating the fact that the days 
were not long enough to keep pace with the 
whidgig of commerce. One morning in the 
balmy October the Smith family rose with the 
dawn and began to prepare for the day. Break- 
fast over, Barnabee took his shining* milking- 
tin in his hand and stepped out on the porch. 
A clang of hammers greeted him joyously. 
What did he see that overwhelmed him with 
a delight that was supreme? On the land di- 
rectly opposite the Section an army of 200 
men were busily engaged in excavating for 
the foundation of a factory of wonderful pro- 
portions. He was beside himself with de- 
light. He hurled his pail high in the air 
like a silver rocket, and spun round on his 
heel like a top. “ Mary Ann !” he cried. 

Betty — Molly — Nelly!” Out they ran from 
the kitchen, thinking papa Barnabee had lost 
his wits. But when they saw the men at 
work in the fields adjacent, and understood 



113 

the significance of this circumstance as it af- 
fected their own prospects, they were quite as 
wild as he. Nelly clapped her hands and 
Molly danced. Betty threw her sun- bonnet 
in the air and Mary Ann cried and laughed 
all at once; and joining hands, the little fam- 
ily united their voices in that sweet paean of 
the long enduring, who have come victorious 
through trial and tribulation, The Cry of 
the weary:” 

Many days have^you lingered around our cabin door; 

01i» hard times, hard times, come again no more.” 

The goose that lays the golden eggs had wan- 
dered southward at last, and had already 
chosen her nest. It was upon the barren Sec- 
tion of Barnabee Smith. 

About a month later a party of Eastern 
men called on Mr. Smith to negotiate for the 
purchase of his land. They met him at the 
gate, and stood talking on the lawn among 
patches of wilted sweet-clover and blighted 
red lilies, for the Indian summer was waning. 
He was quite willing to sell, he replied, if his 
prices were agreeable. The buyers requested 





m 


114 

him to name the smallest amount he would 
take for his Section. The land-owner had that 
quick perception born of hard usage in this 
world. He was assured that this was his 
prime opportunity in which to strike for the 
wages of past years of labor and sacrifice, and 
to strike high. 

My price is two million dollars!” he ex- 
claimed, decisively. ‘‘ And 1 will never take 
a cent less.” 

Poor Mrs. Smith turned away with a fright- 
ened look on her patient, care-worn face. At 
last, at last the worst had come ! Her husband 
was gone stark mad. 

The girls came up and listened, Fan walked 
near, the chickens were familiar, the old gate 
seemed to assume an official air and swung 
noisily on its rusty hinges as much as to say: 

We’ve struck it at last!” The old house 
looked as though a coat of paint had been 
promised although none had touched the dark 
clapboards for many a year, the dogs rollicked 
around the group, the very grasses and trees 
and fiowers nodded, and the wind blew up 


m 




merrily as if it, too, were glad. But what was ; 

this that came running along the road and j 

passed in through the open gate? It was La \ 

Maseotte^ the Pride, who had leaped her own- i 

ePs fence and come back to the old home to 
bring good luck! “ She has come, never to go | 

away,'’ said Barnabee, afterward. “ She has ^ 

come to be milked by Molly’s fingers, to eat J 

dainty bits of clover from her apron. Butter- ; 

files and bright winged moths shall fiy in her | 

meadows, the waters of whose brooks shall be | 

crystal and cooling to her palate ; and she shall ' 

be fed on crimson trefoil and wild honey- | 

suckle.” And after that La Mascotte did re- J 

main with them forever. 

The capitalists came again. They were men 
of great resources. To them two milbon‘dol- 
lats was not such a drawback, but they want- 
ed to be certain that the location of the Sec- 
tion was correct. Surveyors and engineers 
traversed the land; and when the examina- 1 

tion was completed Barnabee was invited to 
drive into town and conclude the bargain. 

It was useless for the purchasers to endeavor 




116 

to shake the land-owner’s determination as to 
his price. He was firm as a rock in his de- 
cision. “Two million dollars or no transfer,’? 
was his positive assertion. The united elo- 
quence of the mighty magnates of the East, 
whom the capitalists employed as counsel, 
could not induce him to deduct one penny 
from his price. There he stood, utterly unaf- 
fected by their importunities, and treated the 
matter as if it were of as little importance as 
the selling of a dozen eggs or a bantam roos- 
ter. 

The bargain was at length concluded, and 
a deposit of five hundred thousand dollars was 
placed in the bank subject to Barnabee’s 
credit; the balance was paid in thirty days, 
and Barnabee Smith was at that date the 
wealthiest ready cash owner in the great city 
of Chicago. 

“ I have discovered the magic key to finan- 
cial prosperity,” said Barnabee to the crowd 
of gen tlemen eagerly congratulating him upon 
his sudden accession to enormous wealth. 
^ It is : Lajstd. Banks may fail, marine wealth 



117 

succumb to storms, railroads collide to the 
detriment of monopolistic interests, manufac- 
turers and politicians lose themselves in their 
own misguided calculations. But real estate 
will not fail, nor wreck, nor collide, nor slip 
from the owner like water through a sieve, 
nor take to itself wings and fly away. It is 
solid, certain, indestructible. The basis of 
all security is LAUD. 



COPYRIGHT SECURED. 








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NORWOOD ROMANCE; 

OR, THE UNWRITTEN WILL. 

A NOVEL, 

By Snivig C. Trebor. 


NUNCUPATIVE OR UNWRITTEN WILLS. 


“This subject came before the Court of Errors in New 
<1 York, at an early day, in a case affecting a large property and 
^ under such a state of facts as to enlist the ablest counsel in the 
State, and occupied the Court for many days in the hearing. 


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and is most exhaustively discussed by Chancellor Kent and 
^ by Mr. Justice Woodworth. The earliest 

^ English writers upon the Subject thus defined them, as being 
such Wills as are made when the Testator “ lyeth languishing 
for fear of sudden death, dareth not to stay the writing of his 

% 

% testament, and therefore he prayeth his Curate, and others, his 
neighbors, to bear^witness of his last Will, and declareth by word 
what his Will is. ” — Redfield on Wills. 

Note. Nuncupative or unwritten Wills have been recently 
^ abolished in England by statutes i, Viet. C. 26, S. 9, with an 
^ exception in the case of Soldiers in actual Military Service and 
M Marines and Seamen at Sea. This is in accordance with the 
^ present law in New York and which forms a basis for the plot 
j of the above intensely interesting story. 

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For Sale by all Booksellers. Price, 25 cts. 





































